A Tale of Two Psychopaths
by Rennaia123
Summary: Some people are just born to crash and burn to the ground. Whether it's for the entertainment of the 'Shinigami King', Hades of whatever masochistic god out there, it's certainly not pleasant. It changes people. Sometimes, it takes a fellow psycho-killer to know one. After all, it takes two to tango. Question is to Kira or not to Kira? (Warning: Gore and some disturbing themes.)
1. CH1: Roll the Dice, Get the Snake Eyes

**Chapter One: Roll the Dice, Get the Snake Eyes.**

She had heard of people having a crappy streak of bad luck. But this was fucking ridiculous.

Her bare feet slapped against the tarmac quietly as she ran for her life. Quite literally.

" _Huff… Huff… Huff… Huff."_

Her breaths came out in short, ragged pants as she shot through the darkened streets. It was well eleven in the night and the sanctity of daylight wouldn't come for the next six or so hours. She had to last that long. She _had_ to. She had to survive.

It was in fact only the sheer strength of her will and her survival instincts that pushed her along, kept her legs moving. Panic, horror, shock, grief and pain was lying in wait patiently for her to stop moving, for the adrenaline that coursed through her veins to disappear, so that they could hit. A tidal wave of emotion just waiting to break shore.

It was her desperation to live and escape the man chasing her- whom she knew first hand liked to get kinky with knives _and_ guns- that kept her racing, ignoring the stitch in her side, that under normal circumstances would have caused her excruciating pain.

The streetlamps were few and far in between- which was a blessing and a curse. Provided that she could _get her fucking breathing under control_ , she could be shrouded in the darkness, increasing her chances of staying alive for the next few hours until the sun decided to show up. The bad part was that the same applied to the creep with the blade. She wouldn't know that he was there until the serrated edge of the knife was at her throat, her jugular cut.

She didn't dare turn back, not in the slightest. She just kept running as fast as she humanly could.

Something wet and hot trickled down her cheek. Salty against her lips.

Tears.

Her body felt her grief before her mind registered it. The shock didn't give her enough time to feel, to be human. And that time sure as hell wasn't _now_. Run, goddamit! Live!

She was stupid- it was a cross, a scar she'd have to bear for the rest of her life. She had gotten her best friend killed. The only one who gave a rat's ass about her was now dead, and it was all her fault. She should have lost her will to live then and there, let the sick fuck with the pig head mask cut her ear to ear, chin to navel, until she was drained of blood. But no. Humans were innately selfish creatures. Even martyrs are afraid of death, no matter what they say. That very last second before the hay is lit, they want to live. And that's exactly why she was now running.

Survival comes first. Then comes revenge.

But revenge wasn't even on the radar at the moment. Just fear and panic simmering ominously below.

She had just run into a new neighborhood. One she didn't quiet recognize- all the zigzagging had thrown her sense of direction and the very faint moonlight did absolutely nothing to help her in her current predicament. It was all so… old. And dead.

More silent than a graveyard, if that was in any way possible.

She couldn't take it anymore. The suspense, the not knowing, was killing her. She quickly turned her head, glancing back.

Nothing. No one.

Turning her eyes back, she still ran, adrenaline- thank the heavens- still numbing her frayed nerves that was sending impulses to her brain, screaming that her body was on fire.

She gritted her teeth, trying not to cry out. It was becoming increasingly and overwhelmingly more difficult to restrain her humanity with every step she took, every pebble that tore through the skin on the base of her foot. A little by little, she was losing it. She was going to die… she was going to die. Oh God! She was going to die.

A metallic tang reached her lips, a droplet that was no sweat falling onto them. Blood. Most definitely _not_ from the gash on her torso the bullet made as it grazed past her. She clapped a hand over the crack in her cranium that she hadn't bothered to patch up after the fight. In all normalcy, she would have pestered Elaine into threading a needle and sewing her up, but with the happenings- not to mention Elaine's death- the head wound that would quite possibly lead to a concussion seemed laughably insignificant at that moment.

Not feeling the sharp sting as her palm met her skull, she stopped the blood from dropping to the ground. There was no need to lay a bread crumb trail practically screaming 'here I am, Buck-o!' to the crazy-plus-dagger.

There was no God. There was no justice. Contrary to popular belief, there was no mysterious karmic force that punished the bad and rewarded the good. Otherwise, what _sane_ all-powerful, all-seeing, titan god out there could possibly deem her and Elaine unworthy of life, could subject them to such a fate simply for fighting for the greater good? There were just inherently good, and inherently bad people waging wars against each other to see who comes out on top.

Currently, it looked like the man with the entrails-fetish was winning, though he was nowhere in sight. She was slowly but surely losing her shit.

And of course, that was the very moment that the non-existent deities and the whole fucking Universe decided to fuck with her some more. After running a good two and a half miles with a bullet wound stuffed with a dirty dishcloth, a crack in her skull and enough mental trauma that would most likely result in her going to the loony bin at some point or another in her life, her body decided to call it quits.

A thick fog rolled over her already waning vision and her world spun. She bit her tongue, hard, and the sharp pain as well as the salty, rusty taste of blood did a decent job of clearing her mind a little, enough so she could understand just how severe her situation was.

She had fallen to her knees in what was quite possibly the most isolated place in North America- no, scratch that- the world. Somehow staggering to her feet, swaying like a palm tree in a gale, she stood, blearily surveying her surroundings. The chance of being heard while shouting for help was just about the chance of getting hit by lightning and pelted with golf-ball sized hailstones in the middle of the Sahara. All in all, the chances were _not_ good.

It was evident that the town… or whatever this godforsaken place was, was abandoned a while ago. A long, long while.

No payphones within walking (hobbling) distance. No streetlights. No houses.

The only buildings that indicated that this place once upon a time was populated by humans were two stores- a Chinese restaurant that was tightly chained shut, and a butcher's shop, with an iron grate bolted over the door. What the owners were worried about having stolen, she couldn't fathom.

Desperation was at an all-time high. Bile rose to her throat. No amount of training could have prepared her for _this_. She was only human and it was at least another two or so miles to a populated area. She couldn't make that run leaking blood like a punctured bucket leaked water. The dishrag stuffed under her shirt was so red that it was almost black. If she somehow miraculously escaped the man with the knife and the handgun, it was likely that she'd die of blood loss.

But deal with the first devil to go onto the next.

She weighed her options. She knew that her choices were limited. Straight off the bat she knew she didn't have a hope in Hell to find a nearby phone. She couldn't call for help- her screams would be heard by the night crickets, a possible serial killer and absolutely no one else. That left one choice.

Hide.

The big question was though, where?

For a minute, she contemplated going into a store to arm herself to up her chances, even if by a tenth of a percent. But she then realized that it was walking straight into the maws of the Devil. For one, the effort required to pry open the shutters and deadbolts would leave her severely weakened- she wouldn't be able to lift a finger. She'd be rendered just about as powerful as a malnourished kitten in the snow. But say she somehow got inside…

She didn't know very much about the neighborhood, but even when it had been populated, it was poor- that much was blatantly obvious. It was likely that despite the cross crossing of locks and chains, the shops had been ransacked, stripped of anything that can be potentially useful, or melted down and recast. She _hoped_ to find a knife, but the chances of that were realistically slim to none. Realistically, the very best she could hope for was a plastic take-out knife.

Would she risk precious minutes of what was quite possibly the last hour of her life in a frantic search for a knife that may or may not be there?

No. She would not.

She limped closer to the buildings. They offered the only hiding place in approximately a mile wide radius but if she couldn't get in, even that would be useless. But then, thank her lucky stars, between the two buildings was a narrow alleyway.

Almost crying with relief, she dragged herself forward slightly faster towards her salvation, but then abruptly stopped, frowning.

The dark alleyway was the _only_ hiding place. Meaning that when the axe murdered comes, it would be the first place he would look. She peered in. It was as black as pitch, but her eyes that were well adjusted to the dark, given that she had spent years living in it, could make out some of the details. Straightaway, her nose alerted her to the fact that the place was absolutely rancid, which by her books was a big plus.

The killer wouldn't be able to get to her by following the smell of blood, sweat, tears and downright heart-palpitating fear. It bettered her likelihood of keeping her life just that little more.

Her eyes made out the shape of a dumpster by the wall, deemed unworthy to be emptied by the garbage truck. By her estimate, the crap in there was _years_ old. There was also a basement window entrance to the Chinese take-out place, which she immediately wrote off. If she got in, she wouldn't be able to get out. She'd be a cow to the slaughter.

Not that the alley would be too much better. She had no idea how many exits it had for her to escape from, if there were any at all. But she decided to pick the lesser of the two evils and entered the narrow space.

It was so clichéd- like something out of a cheap horror/slasher flick. Girl goes into dark alley. Girl met with a serial killer in a mask who proceeds to flay her like a fish while her scream echoes for a few seconds before the screen goes blank. It was like one of the movies that she and Elaine would watch for kicks on Sunday nights in the communal TV room. It was the only day they were allowed out of their dingy, powerless room in the basements, the only day they had no work and could relax.

If all was right in the world, tomorrow, Sunday, she and Elaine would probably be watching something very much like the situation she was in right now. She'd probably snort over the greasy popcorn they painstakingly popped in secret over a homemade gas fire and Elaine would smack her on the head for spitting over the food like a rabid camel.

A dry chuckle, somewhere between a laugh and a quiet sob, escaped her. There was no humor in this.

This was no movie. This was real. And it sure as hell was terrifying.

Legs threatening to buckle, she redoubled her efforts to find something to hide in. Trash? No. Far too predictable- that would be the very first place he'd look. Besides, she'd rather not die smelling like old dirty nappies stewed for five years in fermenting sauerkraut.

She started sweating out of sheer panic and nausea came back in all its fury. Ten minutes had passed. It was at times like these the chicks in the movies thought it was safe to come back out only to come face-to-face with their killers. She wouldn't make that same mistake. And she knew that he wasn't a man who gave up easily. Or gave up at all. He was coming, searching for her. And by now, he had to be nearby.

Something. _Anything_. A dirty cloth, a small crevice in the wall- anything that could hide a 5'4'' skinny nineteen-year-old. She scoured, panic simmering below the calm. She _knew_ that he was near. Everything was dead silent and anyone else would have thought that the coast was clear. But she wasn't most people. She knew.

Her instincts alerted her to his presence in the vicinity- being the neighborhood.

It was the same gut feeling that saved her life in her fights. It was the feeling that told her when she was about to get sucker punched while recovering from a blow and allowed her to swiftly counter with a solid right hook to the mandible, flowed by a knee to the solar plexus and three fingers right below the temple that left her opponent out for the count.

The same series of moves that got her into this shit today.

And right now, her spider senses were tingling. The fucker was near.

Biting back a sob, she fell to her knees and groped around semi-blind. And almost wept when her fingers closed around a tarp. A blessed tarp.

Never had she been so reverent of a piece of plastic.

Staggering up again, she half-crawled to the very back of the alley. It was a cul-de-sac and she knew that she would need all the strength she could muster to punch and escape a second time and run the rest of the mile to the next town. Or die trying.

Lying down flat, with her legs slightly tensed so she could execute a capoeira kick upwards if and when the tarp was removed, she lay in wait. Hoping and praying to whatever God that she may or may not believe in to have mercy on her. Even the most fervent of atheists prayed on their death beds. It was once again, basic human nature.

Everything was still eerily silent.

She calmed down her breathing to near non-existent levels and her heartbeat slowed.

How much had changed in the last twenty four hours? She had lead a wholly shitty life- that much was given. The hand of cards dealt to her was so bad that the game had to be rigged. Orphaned, foster care, group homes, therapy, psyche ward at one point, public high school teeming with coke addicts, getting regularly beaten up by her 'manager' or sorts, running from the cops for petty crimes and cage fighting for a living. The whole nine. But this was a completely different ballgame.

Most of the people she ran with in Detroit could boast the same kind of life she was living. But no one else could really say that they had been shot at and stabbed by a guy who was Hannibal Lecter, John Kramer, George Harvey and Patrick Bateman rolled into one batshit crazy, homicidal freak of nature.

The pig mask she saw him wearing as he turned from her best friend's body- that she had no doubt was once attached to a real, live pig (there were blood vessels around the neck like tassels)- only upped the ante. This was no simple gun-toting Detroit drug dealer who killed with a gun for the money. No. This was a true sadistic sick-o who only used the gun to incapacitate. He used the knife for the rest.

Tears rolled down unchecked down her cheeks.

Elaine. She was dead. She was dead because of _her_.

The image of her last expression- the aftermath of a blood-curdling scream- etched on her face. Her _guts_ spilling out onto the floor from the incision made from chin to navel- filleted alive. Her hand curled around a beer bottle as she fought back. And the sick fuck turning around slowly, having done his deed.

Buckling his belt in the process.

She hadn't eaten for two days- her midterms that seemed utterly useless now had been coming up and all the sneak-studying had taken up her time. But somehow, her stomach managed to conjure up some vomit that tasted of the classic gruel that was given at the MMA hostel.

If it _wasn't_ for him taking a pause for the cause to shut his fly after he had defiled her best friend's dead body, she wouldn't have made it out of there. That split second pause between the moment he let go of his belt to reach for his gun was what saved her life and gave her enough time to throw an ugly porcelain cherub at his head and make a run for it. Elaine's (what she hoped was post-mortem) rape was what saved her. And it made her feel sick.

If only, _if only_ she hadn't been a stupid ass and _listened_ to Elaine.

She had tried to be far too smart for her own good and her best friend had paid the price for her mulishness. She should have _known better_. Sometimes the bad guys win and the good guys have to sit back and watch. She should have known that the guys running their little circus were fishes too big to reel in with her bamboo fishing rod.

But no.

She didn't listen to Elaine.

They caught onto her.

They wanted to get rid of her.

So they put a serial killer on her tail, so the police could never in a million years pin the deaths on them. All because she didn't dive when she was supposed to.

And the worst part? The Dunkin' Donuts/Krispy Kreme/Starbucks gang would never even bother to look for her body. Or find out what happened to Elaine. Or even bother to alert the FBI and shove their responsibilities to them. They'd just keep eating and pretending to be an efficient task force, letting the gun-toting Americans in Detroit lead their bloody lives.

Her breath went a little shaky with grief, but she quickly quelled it and pricked her ears, listening intently. Still nothing.

Her legs were cramping and she felt… well… like she had been shot with a bullet, stabbed with a knife and punched in the head more times than she could count in one night. The pain was just a muddle. So much pain she could no longer tell where it was coming from. In fact, it was faster to say which places _didn_ 't hurt.

Her thoughts began to drift as all the adrenaline rush crept away and the turn of events finally had the time to sink in. It was surreal and she felt the itching need to pinch herself to make it all go away. But she knew that all that would do was make bloody fingernail wounds, doing absolutely nothing to help her in her current predicament. This was all very real. She swore that she'd never laugh at Texas Chainsaw again.

In real life, the shit was a lot scarier.

Just yesterday she had been a normal girl- well, by Detroit standards. Earning a living, going to school, trying to build a better life for herself and Elaine so they could- fingers crossed- move to somewhere that wasn't Murder Central. A nice calm place. Tahiti. Hawaii.

Anywhere.

Even fucking Lubbock, Texas.

Anywhere where the occupation of choice was distribution of controlled substances and the air itself was smoggy with gunshot residue.

They were waiting until their pillowcase was filled with $20,000. They were at fourteen after five grueling years.

But their dreams just died. They died the moment Elaine did.

The tears came faster, though she still uttered absolutely no sound. All she ever wanted was to help the people she cared about. Get a good job that didn't involve getting beaten up for the pleasure of weirdos. She was smart enough to go to college- a good degree was almost guaranteed with a bit of luck and a scholarship. In fact, she had just done the SATs and despite her relatively meager education, she felt as if she had done quite well.

Elaine was always ecstatic about her education. She was a fair bit older than she was. She was twenty-seven. An older sister and best friend. Elaine always ranted on about how smart she was- she herself had dropped out of high-school at fifteen. She was insistent on that not happening to her, saying that her intelligence would one day be their saving grace.

It wasn't.

Because all her 'intelligence' did was get the most important person in her life killed. It had happened once. And it will just happen again.

Her life was cursed.

Someone somewhere out there had a voodoo doll in her likeness and was stabbing it with frenzied passion.

There was simply no other explanation to her strangely tragic streak of bad luck and misfortune.

No amount of Holy Water could save her.

She had to save herself.


	2. CH2: (Part One)- The Devil in Her

**CHAPTER 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.0: The Devil in Her.**

A little girl hid behind the skirts of her social worker, flea-bitten, stuffing-leaking bunny rabbit gripped tightly in her left hand. Marshmallow was its name. The only keepsake she was allowed to keep with her after the accident.

The social worker- Maria- cringed slightly, but her professional, steely-eyed expression didn't falter.

For some reason, the girl gave her the creeps.

She didn't _look_ any different- in fact she was downright adorable. Chestnut brown hair down to her waist, wide hazel-green eyes. Few freckles dotted over her nose. Short, but who could really tell? She was six.

It was weird for anyone to not like a six-year-old. Admitting it to herself made Maria feel like a right bitch. But she wasn't alone. The child was different and strange.

Her eyes, though pretty, were lamp-like- getting stared at (something the girl liked to do very much) made people on the receiving end of her gaze feel as if they were being X-rayed. She never got along well with the other children in the home. Never played in the sandbox, never spoke to them unless it was necessary. 'Pass the salt/pepper' was the most dialogue they got most days. Rarely went outside, and even when she did, she sat under a tree and read a book. Or stared some more. Unease radiated from her petite form.

Her favorite hideout was the top of the attic stairs. A visit up there had revealed to her a pile of books. Not the general child adapted Dickens they stocked their library with. No. On the shelf were books by Shakespeare. Plato. Nietzsche. Freud. Good Heavens, Maria could barely understand the first page. But flicks through the book revealed theories on homosexuality, incest and a whole other planet of bizarre ideas.

Maria, sadly, instead of identifying the child as a genius, saw her as a freak. That notion quickly spread from word of mouth and quite soon, the child was informally the house crazy person.

It was tragic. Not everyone had the mental capabilities to tell an apple from an orange. Some people were born with negative IQ figures and Maria, as well as the majority of the staff at the Caitle Foster Home were under that category. The only thing the buxom, aging woman was good for was packaging off children to homes. Which was what she was doing now, to her great relief.

Hopefully, the couple taking her in could part the child of the Devil's touch and cure her unsavory desires.

The girl, unaware of the discomfort she was unknowingly causing the older woman, huddled in some more. Her purple bunny was crushed closer to her body. The place was… scary. A graveyard, she recognized. A stone house… in a graveyard. A giant cross stood tall on the roof.

Maria rapped on the wooden door with the lopsided cast iron knocker that was attached a touch too enthusiastically. A minute later, a woman walked to the door.

"Yes?"

She flipped on the soft smile almost involuntarily, decades of practice making it effortless. And almost convincing.

"Hello. Are you Mrs. Royce?"

The woman at the door nodded, squinting through her thick glasses. Maria continued.

"I'm from the Caitle Foster Home. My name is Maria. And this… is Leah."

Leah was nudged forwards by a gentle, yet firm push. She stumbled slightly and emerged from behind Maria, almost decapitating her rabbit in her nervousness. The squinting woman's face cleared, obviously now remembering her fostering duties she had agreed to. It was the Lord's will to help those in need. After her husband passed, she had decided to take up a child to fill that loneliness. A child- something the Lord hadn't blessed her with.

The little girl blinked with her large eyes, scanning every inch of the woman in front of her. Slightly portly, shrewish eyes that had purple bags under them, a ratty nest of ginger-blonde hair. Nicotine stains on her fingers.

Leah half-expected the woman to refuse to take charge of her. Most of the other places did. Week after week, she would travel with Maria to various homes. Some kept her for a week, some less. But none of them ever called back for adoption. Her record was four weeks.

But to her surprise, the woman gruffly grunted.

"Hn. Leah, is it? You best come in then."

Maria hid her utmost delight and crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping fervently that the woman would keep the strange waif. Her smile on her face, this time real, she spoke.

"Thank you, Mrs. Royce. Please let us know if you have _any_ problems. Although, I doubt you'll have any with Leah. She is a very well behaved child."

Please don't call. Please don't call.

And yes. Well behaved. So well behaved it was creepy.

The petticoat-clad woman half-snorted again and nodded curtly, moving aside a smidge so the girl could go in. Leah didn't move though, still staring. A smile still fixed on her face, Maria inserted some honey into her voice.

"Go on, sweetheart. Go to Mrs. Royce. She'll take care of you."

Leah looked up at Maria, putting her faith in her. And walked forwards, into the darkened house. With a gruff goodbye, Old Bag Royce (as the cul-de-sac kids called her) followed her charge, closing the door firmly behind her with a loud thud.

The social worker, if she wasn't wearing five inch heels, would have jumped up with a great whoop. Instead she settled for a happy jingle of her car keys as she walked to her sedan, a spring in her step.

The Untouchable was gone. With a little luck, this time for good. Who knows? Maybe she could be cured and taken off the highway that lead straight to lesbianism and incest, quite possibly in the future, pedophilia. Mrs. Royce would straighten her out. She was a church woman. Religion saved souls.

And six months later, Maria's wish upon the stars was granted. She stamped a seal reading 'APPROVED' onto the form that confirmed that Leah Johnson was now the daughter of Roxanne Royce, widow of Pastor Royce (may his soul rest in peace) and that the child was happy and comfortable in her new home.

And that manila folder disappeared into the depths of a filing cabinet, so full of lies that it would make Pinocchio's nose grow into a pine tree.

The child was by no definition, 'happy' or 'comfortable.'

But she didn't know that. And she didn't care, frankly. That was how the job was done. You know what they say. Out of sight, out of mind.

 **(One Year Later)**

"Felicity, dear, come and play."

Leah, who was now Felicity in the eyes of her new mother, knew full well she needed to tread carefully. Very carefully. Mrs. Royce was beyond religious and God-fearing. She was certifiably nuts. Batshit crazy. By her calculations, Leah was now seven. She _should_ be in school, but-in Mrs. Royce's words- she was 'touched by the Devil.'

The small girl was perturbed by the terminology. She was different? But how?

She was getting her questions answered a little by little. For one, she knew that she shouldn't read large books with too many words. The time she once unknowingly did that, she was locked in a closet for sixteen hours with no food or drink. Also, using big words or sentences, failing to pray before bed or staying out too late in the graveyard earned her a myriad of punishments depending on the 'severity of her crimes.'

The lightest being getting locked up in the dreaded closet and the worst being chained onto an altar table and getting the Devil beaten out of her.

Leah was seven- impressionable. But she didn't fail to understand that the woman was nuttier than her grandmother's pecan pie. The one she made every Sunday before the car carrying her, Leah's parents and yet-to-be-born brother went off a bridge its way back from Mass. Leah had been sick with an ear infection. She waited and waited in the daycare to be picked up.

But they never came.

She knew that Mrs. Royce could hold her composure when she was in the presence of others. She was courteous, albeit a bit rude at times and sang gospel at the local church. She was a God-fearing lady to the rest of the world, bound by the teachings of Catholicism.

Mrs. Royce saw herself as a liberator. Purging the world of evil. In her eyes, she was doing the child a great mercy with her punishments.

But Leah never saw it as that. She was always left clueless as to _why_ she was being punished. But she didn't need to learn the same lesson twice. Whatever she was punished for, she didn't do again. It was the only way of survival- she didn't have the luxury to question Mrs. Royce's motives. Or why she had the Devil in her.

"Coming, Mother."

She spoke the way she had seen some children in the park speaking to their mothers. Loud, chirpy and bright. She found that this thoroughly enthralled Mrs. Royce.

Leah winced as she came forward, putting down the well-thumbed-through Children's Bible that the woman had forced her to read. Her back still hurt from last month's exorcism/ lashings. Having read so many books before, she was initially struck by how ridiculous the ideals were and made the foolish error of _pointing it out_. Rookie mistake.

She was chained to the ground and beaten. Spittle had flown from Mrs. Royce's mouth as she screamed for the demon to 'get out, get out, getoutgetout!'

Needless to say, Leah read her Bible dutifully after that. Out of fear initially. Now by choice. She still found that it was ludicrous- especially about the part with some _ark_ that carried two of every animal in the planet. It was all poppycock. But still, with no other entertainment or books that were _not_ about fairies, dwarves or Thumbelina's, she read it over and over again until she could recite the book by heart.

She went towards the kitchen and her new mother sat at the table with a giant mug of her special blend of spiced coffee. Leah averted her gaze and bowed her head slightly. _Respecting your elders_ , it was called.

"Come here, child. I got a present for you."

Leah raised her head inquisitively. A present? For her? It wasn't her birthday. Maybe it was because she was so good of late?

She slowly walked forwards and picked up the box, feeling a little excited. It had been quite some time since she had something new to do. Taking the offered box, she smiled up a little shyly at Mrs. Royce. Not that she _was_ shy- she had just worked out what kind of smile worked best. And by far, the shy variety worked the best.

"Thank you, Mother. May I please play with it now?"

The older woman smiled down nicely and nodded, yet Leah felt something that she couldn't quite place. A sense of unease. But she pushed it away. It was something she felt every day. Nothing new, really.

She unwrapped the gold foil wrapping and sat down with the box on the floor. A puzzle. A _big_ puzzle. In times like this, even the simplest gift seemed like a Godsend. This would keep her busy for _hours_ and the best part was that she could break it up, shuffle the pieces and start again! She turned the box over for a picture to follow, but there was none. She was undaunted. It just made it so much more exciting.

A little smile on her face, she got down to business.

Lost in her own world, she expertly slid pieces across the linoleum, snapping them into place one by one. Half of it was blank, but starting from the top right corner, it was easy enough to figure out what went where. Clouds… the sky.

She went forty-five minutes straight, not even registering the sounds around her. She forgot her lunch. Strangely enough, Mrs. Royce didn't even bother to remind her- she simply sat down at the table with her plate of Chicken Parmesan, watching the girl on the floor out of the corner of her eye. Another fifteen minutes passed.

The puzzle was almost done. The last piece.

Leah already knew that she was in deep shit. She had realized it ten minutes ago, when it became obvious to her that the puzzle was _nothing but_ the sky. This was another test. The only reason she even completed the thing was because it bought her more time. She'd messed up royally.

She didn't dare look back the woman. She was petrified.

The last piece was slid in.

Leah didn't even get time to straighten from her hunched position over the completed puzzle before something solid came crashing into her skull and her world went dark. The last thing she heard was a feral scream of pure, unchecked rage.

The little girl lay bathed in the eerie glow of red candlelight. She was face down on a stone altar in a hidden barn somewhere on the property. And older woman was feverishly flipping through a giant, leather bound book of some sort, muttering under her breath. Or rather chanting.

Leah's eyelids fluttered as she came to.

It was dark. And cold. So cold. And her head was throbbing like a stubbed toe.

She knew where she was. She was careless and she was facing the consequences. Her back hadn't fully healed from the lashings she had received before, so she knew that today, the pain would be even more excruciating. Which would mean that being relatively quiet would be all the more difficult.

And being quiet was most important. Mrs. Royce was of the belief that physically maiming a girl of six wouldn't hurt her- no, it would hurt the demon _inside_ her. If she screamed in pain, it meant that the treatment was ineffective, so she would double the dosage. Leah _had_ to be quiet. Otherwise, she knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep for a good fortnight.

So she just lay there shirtless, face down on the stone table.

She heard the crazy woman chanting. That was all normal. As was the rag and the bowl of water waiting to be dyed red with her blood after her rinsing. After the rustling of papers, however, came a noise that was _not_ normal. The sound of metal against metal. The sound of knives clinking against each other.

Mrs. Royce dipped the curved, ornate blade into a bowl of Holy Water with added spices meant for the purification of the soul. Her hand shook. It had to be done perfectly- the ritual. This was the most powerful ritual in the book. If this didn't work, nothing will. The demon was powerful. For months, it seemed as if her Felicity was fine. But the demon was still there. It was still there.

She sharply sucked in a breath. If she got it wrong, the demon could possess _her_. She couldn't let that happen. She couldn't fail the Lord.

" _Exorcizamus te, omnis immunde spiritus, omni satanica potestas, omnis incursioinfernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, in nomini etvirtute Domini nostril Jesu Christi, eradicare et effugare a Dei Ecclesia, ab animabusad imaginem Dei conditis ac pretioso divini Agni sanguini redemptis."_

She dipped her blade into the water again and ran it through some heavily perfumed herbs, oblivious of the stifled whimpers coming from the now awakened girl.

Leah didn't understand much of what she was saying, but she caught something about blood and Satan. To say she was scared didn't even begin to cover it. She was positive Mrs. Royce was coming towards her, heels clacking, brandishing a _knife_. Was she going to get sacrificed? Killed?

A cloyingly sweet, disconcerting smell of lavender, cayenne pepper and something distinctly like thyme wafted towards her nose as she heard the dripping of water. She wanted to be Mrs. Royce to stop, that there _was_ no demon, that she'd do anything she'd say, but her words simply turned to whimpers with the black dishrag she was gagged with. All she could really do was scream.

"Mmmmmph. _Mmmmmh!"_

The indistinguishable pleas fell on ears deafened by years upon years of untreated schizophrenia, narcissistic personality disorder and God knows what other ailments.

" _Exorcizamus te, omnis immunde spiritus, omni satanica potestas, omnis incursioinfernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta_ _diabolica, in nomini etvirtute Domini nostri Jesu Christi, eradicare et effugare a Dei Ecclesia, ab animabusad imaginem Dei conditis ac pretioso divini_ _Agni sanguini redemptis!"_

A clash of metal again, like a sword being drawn echoed through the room and Mrs. Royce's final words rose in pitch and loudness. Leah screamed, knowing that the metal was going to pierce her flesh. She wanted someone to hear her, to save her. But she knew realistically that if Mrs. Royce wanted her dead, she'd almost certainly die.

She screwed her eyes shut and she held on to the sides of the table with a knuckle-whitening vice grip. Bracing herself for a world of pain to make the whipping pale in comparison and quite possibly, her journey to Mu.

But a knife blade was not what touched her next.

Mrs. Royce gently stroked through her hair once. Twice. Thrice.

"Don't worry, Felicity, my sweet. I'll save you. I will, I promise. This won't hurt you even the tiniest bit. It'll only hurt the Devil within."

Leah screamed again, tears streaming down her face, desperately hoping- _praying_ even.

Alas, there was no divine intervention.

A shrill shriek pierced the stillness of the night, drawing only the attention of a wayward owl, which them focused its lamp-like eyes on its mouse again. They dead lay… well… as dead as ever. There was no one to help her. Absolutely no one.

"Come on boy! Come on. No, don't! Leave that cute squirrel alone… That's it. Come on. Daddy's this way."

A great, big, fat golden retriever bounded around the tombstones, frolicking in the baby grass, reveling in the freshness of the smell. It wasn't at all bothered about the fact that it was in a land inhabited by the dead- after all, it was a dog.

Casper the Friendly Dog was dangerous to the rodent populace. It was… far too friendly. It loved the squirrels to death. Quite literally. One swift smack from his giant paw- meant to be a gesture of goodwill- was all it took to send the creatures to the little Squirrel Heaven. May their tiny souls rest in peace.

Catherine Wilkins was here to visit her husband. Her late husband. Casper tagged along, being both her best friend, as well as Doug's.

A bouquet of fresh red roses and moonflowers was clutched in her hand as she made her way along a well-trodden path between gravestones towards the particular one that she sadly knew all too well. She hadn't been there in a good six months. Catherine had fallen in love once more and had just gotten remarried. Before she met Robert, she had visited Doug every single month on the sixteenth with a bunch of fresh wildflowers. But then it stopped.

Pining over one's dead husband all the time would throw a monkey wrench into any new relationship and marriage.

So she resolved to visit him every few months. Few being six. Today was hers and Doug's wedding anniversary, hence the red roses. Simply because she loved another didn't mean that her love for the first had faded. They had never fallen out of love. He had died. Some part of her will always burn with mourning for him.

She arrived at a creamy white marble headstone with a bowing angel standing gracefully at the top, looking down at him.

 _Douglas Wilkins._

 _1974-2010._

 _Loving Son and Husband. Here lies a man who lived his life with kindness, compassion and altruism. May he Rest in Peace._

The epitaph was nothing special- she was in no mindset to decide at that time what the headstone would say. She didn't really give a shit. She was too busy weeping rivers to care about that. So she gave the job over to the funeral directors and this was what she got. In retrospect, she probably should have done it herself. But what was done was done.

Catherine knelt down in the grass and gently traced his face in the photo as she lay down the flowers.

"Happy Anniversary, Dougie. Casper says hi too."

She brought her knees up to her chest and let out a deep sigh. Where to even begin?

"I miss you. Everyday. I love you and I always will. I'm fine. Robert's good to me. Casper's becoming fatter by the day and I don't have the heart to reduce his diet. Ummm. Oh, and I got a promotion a couple months ago. I'm manager now, can you believe it? I boss people around all day, drink coffee and get paid for it!"

She chuckled for a bit. It was what he always said. She then let out another weary sigh and leaned against the cool marble. Casper came to her, lay down and nuzzled her belly. She smiled a little and ran he fingers through his thick fur.

"Damn. I miss you and I'm sorry I couldn't visit for so long. I hope Heaven is treating you right. At least now you can eat all the bacon in the world and not have to worry about getting fat. No, wait. That's _my_ Heaven. You're probably holed up in some ethereal auto-repair shop."

He was always a sucker for vehicles.

Ironic it was that he was run over by some drunk fuck as he was crossing the street.

She snuggled in closer, pushing some of Casper's weight off her legs that were beginning to lose their feeling under his doggie lard. God, he was honestly fat. Something _must_ be done. As she idly fondled his ears, she heard something. A soft moan. Like something, or _someone_ begging for help.

She sat up and listened intently, but all was silent. She shook her head slightly and sank back down. Graveyards did drive people a little off their rocker sometimes. She was imagining things.

Twenty minutes later, she decided it was time to leave.

"Babe. I have to go now… Robert might be getting worried. I promise… I'll come to visit when I can. Watch over me, sweetheart. I know you are. I love you."

She kissed the cold stone and straightened out the flowers a little more before she roused the sleeping dog and stood up.

"Up you get, Casper. Good _boy_. C'mon. We're goin' home."

The retriever lazily stumbled to his feet, disgruntled at having his blissful dog nap disturbed. She clipped on his leash and with a last flying kiss goodbye, turned away from the bouquet of flowers and the marble headstone. Walking back towards the cast iron gate of the graveyard, she heard that same moan again.

She would have written it off as just her imagination if it wasn't for one thing.

She wasn't the only one who heard it this time. This time, Casper was her witness. The normally lazy dog pawed the ground with abnormal energy and vigor and whined. He heard it too. Someone was here. Someone needed help.

Thinking quickly, she unclipped the struggling dog, who promptly shot off like a bullet from a muzzle. Using her expertise in track, she gave chase. She needed to call the police- she had the phone in hand on standby. Firstly, though, she needed to confirm whether or not there was actually someone there, else she could face charges. She sincerely hoped she was wrong in the assumption that there was a murder taking place.

Running as fast as her legs took her, she jumped over short headstones as she ran. She could see the dog as a large blob of golden-brown fur. Never had she seen the obese dog run so fast for anything- not even to the car to sniff for pork rinds.

After two or three minutes, she slowed down. The dog had stopped in front of a barn and was now barking furiously at the door, scratching and whining intermittently.

"Good boy, Casper. C'mere."

Catherine called out and the dog came running back, although its gaze was sporadically turned back to the door. Yep. Something was most certainly not right.

Picking up a particularly thick branch fallen off a tree, she edged closer, Casper following her. There was the chance that there was an axe murder on the loose. No matter how much she wanted to run off and let the police deal with it, her good conscience wouldn't let her do that.

She could really end up regretting her valor. But she had to do something.

Catherine was now at the door. Her heart hammering in her chest, blood throbbing through her temples, she refrained from calling out. She had seen too many serial killer movies end badly simply because of that. Sucking in a deep breath, she slowly opened the door.

And gagged as nausea hit her like a ton of bricks falling off the top of the Empire State building.

Dear God, the _smell_.

It was _rancid_. Like aged fish guts, rotting cabbage and toxic-waste-bad eggs. Coughing and retching, she drew her sweater over her nose and mouth and looked up, eyes watering.

To this day, Catherine Wilkins wished she didn't. The woman's glassy, clouded eyes staring back at her empty and listless, her blue, bloated face infested with larvae and her expression of anguish were things that refused to leave her mind. She saw it in her nightmares. No amount of therapy helped.

She threw up promptly, feta cheese-tomato muffin she had for breakfast splattering over the hay. Wiping the back of her palm over her mouth to clean her face, acrid taste in her mouth, she pointedly averted her gaze from the dead woman. And saw- if possible- a worse sight.

A little girl- maybe six or seven- was tied down to a stone table. The muffled, weak shouts were coming from her. A little more than skin and bone she was. And, oh God. Her back. There was no skin. Or there may have been. But all she saw was dark red, congealed blood that made it impossible to distinguish where the blood stopped and the skin began. She was weak, so frail.

Ignoring Casper for the moment, who had been repulsed by the smell of the corpse near the door, Catherine hurried over to the girl.

"Sweetheart, it's okay. Shhhh. I'm here to help. Don't… Don't move okay? I'm gonna free you. Hold on."

The child nodded weakly- it was a twitch of her head. She had to have been in here screaming her throat off for _days_. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she scouted the area for a possible tool to pry open the manacles. She found a small chisel and a sledgehammer. It wasn't ideal- one slip up and she could break the girl's arm. Off, perhaps.

As carefully as she could, she made do with what she had. Instead of breaking the cuffs themselves, she focused on separating the links of the chain- a bit of a safer approach. Ten minutes of grueling toiling later, she had the girl free from the table.

"Th…Thank… ou…"

She could barely form the syllables as the gag was removed and the woman shuddered at the thought that she wasn't going to make it. She had to live.

"Don't talk, love. Just hang in there. I'm going to call the police. Hang in there."

The girl shut her eyes, her face relaxing slightly and for a second, she panicked, thinking that the little one died. But when she saw her chest rise and fall- albeit unevenly, she silently breathed a sigh of relief. What the hell happened here?

She pulled out her phone and dialed.

9-1-1.

"Hello, 911, what's your emergency?"

She snapped to attention as the line connected.

"Um yes. My name is Catherine Wilkins. I'm at the cemetery a little of Gladbrooks Street in a barn in the north of the property. There's… a dead body here. And a girl- she's alive. Ummm, I don't know what happened here, but it's bad… please… the child's very weak… it…"

She broke off, unable to continue.

"It's okay ma'am. Help is on the way. It'll be ten minutes to your location, hang on ma'am."

Catherine wiped a tear from her eye and nodded, though she couldn't be seen.

"O-okay. Thank you."

She hung up and put her phone away. She looked at the girl, who seemed to be becoming paler by the second. She desperately yearned to clean off her back and dress her in her coat and carry her away outside, but she knew that it would contaminate the crime scene. It could have been a murder.

Rootling through her bag, she searched feverishly for some food, or water. Or pretty much anything fit for human consumption but came up empty.

Catherine couldn't stay in there any longer. Ten minutes was an eternity more in a place closer to Hell than any other place she had ever seen. And she couldn't leave the child in here alone either. She weighed her options and made up her mind. To hell with the lot of them.

Coming to a compromise, she cloaked the girl in her jacket without washing away trace evidence and gently picked the sleeping child up and carried her outside, making it a point not to look at the bloodied corpse. Settling her down under a tree, she reveled in the smell of the fresh air and firmly shut the door behind her. Sitting down, supporting the girl's head on her lap and keeping a firm grip on the sledgehammer that had replaced her branch as her weapon, she called Casper over- who obediently did as he was told.

Fifteen minutes later, Casper's ears pricked up and he barked just as a great big German Shepherd burst into the clearing. Catherine was startled and instinctively raised her hammer out of fear and an adrenaline rush, but then relaxed as she noted the 'Police' vest on it. Seconds later, a man ran in, clad in the standard blue field kit.

"Are you Ms. Wilkins?"

She nodded, completely lowering her weapons.

"I am. This is the girl I found. I… couldn't leave her there. But I touched her body as little as I could when I freed her. The body is… in there… it's…"

The officer came over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry ma'am. We'll take it from here. Thank you for finding her on time."

Catherine gulped and nodded.

A few minutes later, the clearing was full. Paramedics took the girl off her, taking her jacket along with her as evidence. It was alright- she'd much rather never see that jacket again. The coroner rolled out a gurney with a black body bag strapped to it. Hugging herself, with a death grip on Casper's leash, she just waited.

The policeman came back to her.

"Ma'am, you can go now. We'll handle everything. Get some rest, I'm sure you're shaken up. But we'll need you to come down to the station to give a statement later, okay?"

She nodded, but hesitated. One more thing she had to know, else she'd never sleep again.

"Officer, was it… murder?"

The man in the sunglasses looked at her and shook his head.

"No, ma'am. It was a suicide. We think the woman was trying to exorcise the child and had a particularly violent manic episode. Coroner has to confirm though."

Catherine nodded a final time and turned to leave. And leave she did. But not before taking one last look at the place that still occasionally haunted her nightmares.

And boy did she have those often.

Responding Officer Cory Johnston closed the file on the case. Something straight out of Arkham Asylum. It was insanity at its best- well, worst.

Poor kid.

It took them three weeks to get her statement and even when they did, it wasn't in complete sentences. Bits and pieces here and there they carefully taped together to make something intelligible. Then, she shut up completely.

Apparently, she was a 'cursed child.' And Mrs. Royce was her adoptive mother who tried to cleanse her for the devil. She had been taken into the barn for the ritual when halfway through, the crazy woman had decided that the Devil had decided to switch bodies. She had taken a switchblade through her wrists and carotid too for good measure.

And that kid- Felicity- had watched it all go down.

On top of that, Catherine Wilkins had found her one week or so after. Meaning a week of starvation and hunger. Dear sweet Jesus. Just when you think you've seen it all, some shit like this goes down. Definitely not pretty.

The kid was cleaned up and the surgeons patched her up the best they could. But even a bucket load of latex or spandex or silicon or whatever shit they did plastic surgery with couldn't fix the scars on her back. Forensics found that she was regularly tortured in the 'cleansing rituals'- whipping, lashing, burning, you name it. The most recent was cutting.

A knife at the scene matched the girl's blood.

It had been used to _carve_ some weird ass shit into her back. Intricately drawn angel wings where each feather was carved in precise detail. A pentagram of some sort. A triangle. Jashinism? Witchcraft? Voodoo?

Needless to say, the girl was in therapy now. According to the shrink, she didn't speak. Said shrink also identified that Mrs. Royce suffered from a variety of syndromes based on the girl's statement and the picture of the crime scene. ' _Religious delusions,'_ he called it. Whatever it was, all Cody knew was that the bitch was nuts.

He had also gone on to arrest Maria Gonzales at the Caitle Foster Home and shut down said place for gross child negligence. Of course, the story made national headlines, but fearing for the child's sanity, they didn't give the media her name or her face.

The police wanted to do a psyche evaluation on her and treat her for possible and probable PTSD. Some time to herself might help, they thought. Perhaps the next two years. If she was better, she could be let out of the institute and sent back into the adoption system. Maybe go to school. But first, she had to be rehabilitated into society- get her talking. All she did now was flip through pages of books upon books, most likely glancing through them.

Not most likely, most definitely. A seven-year-old could not understand the full-sized volume of Grey's Anatomy- there was just no way. They couldn't confirm if she _was_ a genius or not- she was mute. But Cody surmised that she was just looking through the pictures.

To test their theory, they had tried to give her some tests in the guise of toys. A Rubik's cube, Sudoku puzzles, crosswords and jigsaws hidden amongst a variety of soft-toys. The only thing she remotely showed an interest in was a blue rabbit in the basket. She never let it go. The jigsaw puzzle was violently tossed out of the window so that the pieces rained down twenty floors like confetti.

Unresolved anger issues too, he suspected.

Cody Johnston sighed tiredly and sipped his coffee. Again, poor kid. It'll take years for her to become remotely _normal_ again. But still, as cold as it may sound, it wasn't his job now. Another day, another murder.

So he closed the manila folder bearing the name Felicity Royce on it.

And with that, like Leah Addington, Felicity Royce was also lost in a pile of paperwork. Samantha Carter was instead born, with no past- only a future to be made.

 _Hello, hello. So this chapter will be divided into nine parts. 2.0, 2.1 etc. All the way to 2.9. Yay. There are a lot of blanks to be filled and the tension will be delightfully palpable. Holler!_

 _Anyways, I hope you like reading this as much as I like writing it. Ideas and constructive criticism is much loved and cherished. Love y'all! :)_


	3. CH2: (Part Two)- The Loony Tunes

**CHAPTER 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.1: The Loony Tunes.**

The guard whistled as he performed his routine check-up. Everything seemed quiet enough. Normal. As normal as things could get in a nuthouse anyway. The official term was Caldwell Mental Rehabilitation Center. A flowery way of describing a grey, monotonous building that ran like clockwork, chock full to the brim with loonies of all shapes, sizes and forms.

They ranged from your average, garden-variety schizophrenic who was utterly _convinced_ that his neighbor's trashcan was a portal to the Netherworld, to the full blown psychopath who was _this close_ to tearing someone apart limb from limb just for kicks.

Checking his key ring, he counted them. All fifty seven were there. None of the doors were unlocked. Lovely. He could now end his shift, eat his dinner in front of the TV with an ice-cold beer and a pork chop- extra garlic. Alone.

He walked along, completely oblivious to the loud yells and grunts from the cells that he walked past. Hands reached out through the bars and some of the crazies were positive rabid, frothing at the mouth as they swore and cussed to put Gordon Ramsay to shame. Any visitor would have high-tailed it back the way they came if they stumbled in here, but he was utterly immune.

He supposed there was a little madness to him too.

Working the job for twelve years would do that to anyone.

Walking directly in the center of the corridor so that he would be safely out of reach of any of the non-strait-jacketed patients, he continued on slowly. Up the stairs and onto the floor with the padded cells for the more… violent people.

If there was anywhere in the building that peeved him even in the slightest, it was this floor.

Unlike the other floors, it was silent. One might make the mistake of believing that it was empty- even a snowflake falling on the ground would cause echoes that ring for decades. It was creepy.

It was this lack of sound that unnerved him. Because it told him that the people _here_ were not your average crazies. These people were smart. They plotted. And that made them dangerous. At least some of them.

But everyone here had something in common.

They had all tried to kill someone. Some had succeeded.

Old Man Tom was on his Top Ten List of Brick-Shitting Scary Psychos. Through the slat in the door, he peered in to see a well-coiffed, gentlemanly man with a full head of grey hair sitting erect in a chair, hands on his thighs quite neatly. His chair was perfectly dead center of the room and he was gazing fixedly at the door. A violin lay on his bed with a modified bow the higher-ups had custom made for him so that it couldn't be used as a weapon.

He might immediately strike one as quite odd, but other than that, a harmless, albeit pompous, old man of culture and finesse.

Harmless was very wrong.

Old Man Tom was a serial killer. Four on count. The man- before he earned himself a Golden Ticket to the nuthouse- was a professor at a college somewhere. One fine day, the man had cracked. He claimed that the world was meant to be symmetrical- and that _someone_ was asking him to make it _perfect_. He started with his classroom. Thirty chairs one side, thirty on the other- all equally spaced. Not a millimeter off. His papers never had an odd number of questions or sheets.

But, he didn't stop there.

He started killing to achieve perfection. Any of his students with an 'imperfect' face in his eyes- an eyebrow crooked, a single dimple on one cheek- put them in his hit list. Picking out his targets, he followed them home and straight off killed them off. Not very refined- but he _was_ an insane man hearing voices.

It was what he did _after_ killing that was the real kicker.

He cut parts of them off. Sewed them back on so that one side of the face _exactly_ matched the other. He then dressed them in single-color clothes and placed them around the house perfectly poised. The house itself was tidied to the point of spotlessness.

He made off with the insanity plea, but in his opinion, Old Man Tom was better off dead. Hearing that violin play at odd hours of the night just gave him the heebie-jeebies. The music always started at 00:00 sharp. And the strangest bit was he didn't even have access to a clock. His psychosis was that far developed- he was that far gone.

The guard just thanked the lucky stars that _he_ didn't have the night shift today.

Quickly moving past, he gazed upon a ginger-haired woman, sleeping with her head down while sitting in her chair. Tucked in nicely into her warm, plush strait-jacket. Annabelle Ross. Nothing spectacular about her story. Killed her mother, lived with the decaying body until the neighbors complained to the municipal council about a horrid smell.

They found the older Ross woman sitting across from Annabelle at the dinner table, head lolling backwards, throat slashed with a box cutter. The murderess herself was eating breakfast, conversing brightly with the corpse.

She was also a cutter and had suicidal tendencies. Hence the jacket.

In fact, as soon as the police found her, she had tried to stab herself in the femoral artery with a butter knife. Obviously unsuccessful. Then, she had tried again in jail, becoming highly creative with a paperclip she had pickpocketed.

Also proclaimed insane, she was sent here where she never left the comfort of that jacket.

A couple doors down, he spied the Ice Queen, born Sarah McConell. Now _she_ was the real deal. Though asleep now, she had a blue-eyed stare that would freeze Hell over. An ominously wide smile would usually be offered with said stare.

This one was the female Jeffrey Dahmer and was strait-jacketed and chained to the wall.

She worked as a female trucker. For a meat processing plant.

Put two and two together.

For months, if not years, she went around the country with dead bodies packed underneath beef and pork. Word around the block was that she was a cannibal.

A shiver of disgust went down his spine at the thought.

Of biting into another human being.

Disgusting.

The police only caught her because she fucked up. One day, she failed to lock up properly and on Highway nine of East Texas, a severed arm missing three fingers landed like bird shit on the windscreen of a car behind her truck.

To this day, the guard didn't know how she ended up in the cuckoo's nest. She wasn't mad in the least. Well, she _was,_ but not _insane_. Just wired differently. She should have been burned at the stake, then electrocuted and _then_ given the injection _just_ to make sure she was really dead. That was how fearful he was of that woman.

Somehow, the worst, most prolific serial killer of the new era had gotten the best lawyer.

Being able to convince a jury to let that woman live was a feat worthy of Moses.

He continued down the hallway, footsteps sounding like the love child of thunderclaps and gunshots. The quiet was inhuman. How fitting.

But there was one room that… not scared- no- but unsettled him above all the others. The newest addition to their little family of crazies.

Room 201.

 _Abigail Rivers_ was what was written on the nameplate, but he swore everyone called her Samantha when she came in. For attempted murder. The real shock? She was nine. Or eight. He wasn't entirely sure of his facts, but he sure as hell knew that at that age, they should be playing with Barbie dolls, their mothers' makeup and whatever other crap his daughter of a similar age played with. Definitely _not_ killing people.

You know the little girls in horror films? _The Grudge_ , _The Ring_. The girls that crawled across the floor with a dead, vacant stare that sent you balls up into your ribcage hiding in fear, though you never admitted it? Yeah. That. Abigail or Samantha seemed a bit like that.

She never slept.

Ever.

The one time she slept, she had woken up screaming like a cat halfway in the process of being gutted. That was when she was downstairs with the 'normals.' The guards had gotten there just in time to stop her from putting her head through a noose made from her bed sheets. That was when the officials decided that she should be put in a padded cell for her own safety.

But since then, she had never slept. Nightmares, he was lead to believe, kept her awake.

A part of him was sad for the girl, who was undoubtedly an orphan- no one _not_ visits a nine(?)-year-old in a nut house. And she had been here for a year. No, two. Twice a week, she was forcibly put into a deep sleep with some industrial-strength sleep tablets with a side of anti-psychotics. Afterwards, for an entire day, she was under surveillance.

The rings around her eyes as she stared blankly at the wall now, hands fiddling idly with a...Rubik's cube?, were so pronounced that they were black. As asphalt.

Her story wasn't as bad as the others.

That was probably because there was more to it.

All he knew was that she had tried to murder her psychiatrist out of the blue. With a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. She had gone to trial and the jury had found her guilty, most likely since they had no other choice. Her defense consisted of an evidence-less lawyer. The reason that he had no evidence, nothing that could potentially save her?

She was a mute. Or at least, she _never_ spoke.

Still. It saddened Will Jackson. His daughter, Emily was about the same age- give or take a year. She was eight. She was a constant ball of excitement, laughter and smiles. Nothing endeared him more than the look of blissful contentment that crossed her face as he finished reading her a storybook and sleep took over.

She was the antithesis to Abigail. Abigail drew the short straw in life.

He slowed his steps automatically, coming to a stop outside her door.

That actually gave him an idea. All these people- they tried poking her, prodding her, being nice to her simply because it was their job to be. They were nice to her so that they could get information from her. Maybe, though she was so young, she knew that. Maybe all she needed was some love to make up for the love she obviously hadn't gotten before, _someone_ to show her that nice people still exist in the world.

Walking down the steps, he completed his check of the floors. He was done for the night. Punching out his card, he greeted Robert- the next on duty.

"Hey, mate. Have a nice night, yeah?"

He grinned, knowing that midnight was near and Old Tommy would be tightening his strings. Robert grimaced and gave him the finger, making his grin even wider.

"Fuck you. That guy's creepy as all hell, man. You lucky bastard. You're buying me a beer later. Now get lost. Go fuck your wife."

Will chuckled.

"Don't need to tell me twice Robbie. And no way am I buying you a beer, you cheap drunk. A'right. I be leaving. G'night to you, Sir."

Robert rolled his eyes at his friend's antics as the other man took a mocking bow and waggled his fingers goodbye. Such a goofball.

Leaving through the doors, Will ran out into the darkening streets. He had something to pick up. Some _things,_ actually. One being a cold beer for the poor sucker with the graveyard shift. A nice Bud ought to do the trick.

* * *

She stared blankly at the wall in front of her, eyes flickering occasionally to the unsolved cube in her hands. The people running this place were obviously not the most intelligent. They didn't think to actually give her something she _could_ occupy herself, her hands having been gloved with padded 'anti-suicidal' gloves. Glorified oven mitts.

Hard to hold a fork, yet alone a Rubik's cube. A metaphorical fork of course- she hadn't seen one in years.

Leah- or _Samantha_ , she supposed- knew the workings of this place. She also knew that she'd never get out on her own accord. Anything she did or said would be misinterpreted and used against her. She hated that they thought she was mentally debilitated and criminally insane. She hated being talked to like she was slow- with words drawn out to twice their regular duration, spoken with sickly fake endearment.

It was- by the tally of the days she heard the music at midnight- her seven hundred and fortieth day here. Little north of two years. She didn't know when her birthdays came and went, but if she ventured to use her brain for just a second, she'd know that she would be ten. In exactly four minutes.

But she cared not for such menial things. The 6th of July meant less than nothing to her.

Her mind was- as always- blank. A clean slate.

She preferred not to waste energy thinking about useless things, such as her past, ways of escape from this obviously maximum security glorified loony prison, her future and what she'd do if she ever got out. It was why she was silent- both at her trial and during her 'counselling sessions' and group therapy.

How she got here?

State mandated therapy for trauma. A psychiatrist had been assigned to her. A.J Rosenhall. PhD from Johns Hopkins University, all around scholar and a highly esteemed member of the community. Unfortunately, also resident psychopath and pedophile.

Six months of friendly conversation, he had made the mistake of thinking it would be okay to touch her. Apparently, all his experience with the human mind had lead him to believe he knew exactly who she was and how she'd react. He'd pegged her as a submissive, meek child who needed love and affection in order to open up.

He didn't see that she was an excellent liar. Mrs. Royce had taught Leah or _Felicity,_ how to lie exceedingly well.

Leah had had enough.

First Mrs. Royce had left her mark. A mark that had disgusted her every time she looked in the mirror as she pulled on her shirt. Eventually, she stopped turning her back to the mirror, so that she'd never have to see those angel wings spreading across her back.

And she wasn't stupid. Of course, the shrink knew that she was smart. He'd have to be deaf, dumb _and_ blind not to know that. He just didn't gauge _exactly_ how smart she was. He taken childish innocence into account and thought that she would have been too afraid.

Again, he had been wrong.

Lesson Number Two from the Mrs. Royce handbook.

When attacked, always fight back. The last time she had tried to escape without confrontation, she'd gained her wings. Literally.

Leah was no ordinary seven-year-old. She knew when she was being molested. She also wasn't going to go down without a fight. Grabbing the nearest thing to her- ironically, a puzzle piece- she stabbed him in the neck as hard as she could with the sharp edge. She wasn't a psycho, she wasn't a crazy person. At least not to start with. Life had done that to her. _Undo_ didn't cover that.

One may ask. _Why didn't she speak up_?

Of course, she wouldn't answer- it was a waste of effort.

But if she _were_ to answer, it was because no-one would have believed her. Denial was a powerful thing.

Powerful psychiatrist-cum-psychologist who knew exactly how to plead a case, exactly how to pull the strings like a puppet-master? Or her, a small girl who had 'attacked him unwarrantedly,' with a 'troubled past' and 'psychopathic tendencies?' Who would they believe?

The prior, of course.

So she didn't bother to speak her piece.

As they packed away her things and brought her here, not a word was uttered. Not a single complaint. She was placid and catatonic. She simply didn't care.

Her eyes moved over her oven-mitt-anti-psycho gloves. Tracing the pattern of criss-crossing white lines did little to appease her aching mind, but she did it anyway. Little was better than nothing at all. Words to live by, she learned.

She was now Abigail the Nutjob. State had changed her name once again to make sure that if and when she got out after being 'fixed', she could lead a normal life without her past following her in a dark cloud of misery. None of them realized that she wasn't crazy. But then, she had been hiding her true self from people for most of her young life. She was good at the art of deception. It was easier to deceive people who had already made their assumptions.

If they wanted crazy, why not give it to them?

That was another mistake on her part though. She had thought she would be able to handle this place. She thought it would be like jail. She had underestimated the power of fake smiles, gruel-like slop, restraints and drugs.

It was a place for crazy people. It was inhabitable by sanity.

Therefore, if she wasn't crazy before, she sure was now.

A normal person in a padded cell went through a cycle. The endless cycle, the whiteness. The sheer loneliness. It was a canvas from the little madness in anyone to paint a Picasso on. A cacophony of voices, kaleidoscopic illusions, faces and places materialized in front of them in an endless symphony. The mind's cure for loneliness was conjuring up an alternate reality. Loneliness drove man to insanity.

But then, once the mind didn't feel alone anymore, it starts to revert back to its old ways. The visions of rainbows and hallucinogenic patterns vanish.

And they're alone once more, waiting for the cycle to begin again.

Leah dubbed it the Madman's Period. Patent pending.

She supposed that she was in hers. Her mind was utterly empty as she saw grape vines growing along the diagonal lines of the padding cushions, with little, thumb-sized fairies calling out to her. She knew it wasn't real.

So she looked away.

Somewhere down the hall, a violin started playing. Leah quietly stood up and walked over to the corner of the room. It took some doing, but after angling her face and cracking her neck a few times, she managed to etch another line into the wall. With her tooth.

Her seven hundred and forty-first day.

How different the world outside must look now. She idly wondered when she'd see a face that wasn't cloaked in a surgical mask under so much padding that they looked like the Michelin tire mascot. She shook the thought out of her mind. No point in thinking about 'if's' and 'when's'. There was only now. That's all she cared about. Now.

Telltale footsteps came along the hallway.

The second night guard, right on time.

Setting her mattress right again, she slowly floated back to her chair and sat down, idly plucking up the Rubik's cube once more. Mentally solving it. If only she had her hands. Life without opposable thumbs must be excruciatingly difficult- she had newfound respect for the rest of the animal kingdom. Her mind, after that last thought, went back into hibernation.

A genius's worst nightmare was boredom. Her brain had to preserve itself somehow.

Ten minutes later, Leah snapped back to attention, eyes swiveling slowly to the door, fixing her lamp-like eyes to the small slat in the door. It was the food hatch where a guard came thrice a day with food trays. Either meatballs, gruel the consistency of pig slop, or macaroni and cheese. The latter was the only one Leah ate- on other days, the trays were dutifully slid back out looking just the same coming out as it did going in.

But the grating was confusing her.

For one, it had trouble fitting through the hatch. Meaning it wasn't food. Second, it was well past midnight. The last guard had just left and she gauged that there were still about three thousand two hundred cricket chirps to go until the next one came in. This was irregularly in between. Keeping her face blank as ever, she watched the slat, quirking an eyebrow with the faint _thud_.

It wasn't the clash of metal on metal that she was accustomed to as her tray of food fell in. No. This was more like… paper. Or cardboard.

Interesting.

She was curious, to say so the least. It had to be either a doctor, or a guard. A nurse, maybe? The latter two seemed more likely to her- no doctor was up at this hour. They left the minute the clock struck nine. Nonetheless, she waited patiently seated in her chair, trying to figure out the motive behind the sudden midnight delivery. Could it be some way to kill her? Could it kill her through touch alone? A letter bomb? A paper laced with potassium cyanide or a lethal dose of arsenic?

But that didn't make sense.

Assassination was easier during the day in the asylum, contrary to popular belief. More people on duty, more people to pin a murder on. It couldn't be a stranger either- this was maximum security. Only security IDs and doctor passes could bypass the security system. It had to be a person employed by Caldwell. Meaning it made more sense to attempt to kill her during the day.

She pondered for a good while longer. She really could see _no ill intent_. Any way she pictured the scenario, nothing seemed malicious. She decided to sate her curiosity. What was so important that someone went out of their way their way to deliver it to her at the night's deepest hour?

Leah slowly stood up and walked to the door. Bending down, she gingerly reached into the hatch and pulled out something crinkly. Paper.

Taking it out, she noted it was quite heavy. Wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine, it was rudimentary packaging. Hm. Maneuvering her mitted fingers to open the darned thing was difficult, but with time on her hands and a good set of teeth, she managed to get it undone after a few minutes of struggle.

A book fell onto her lap.

A well-worn, leather-bound book. Flipping it over, she read the cover.

 _Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales_.

Her eyes scanned over the book, not missing a single detail, analyzing every single aspect of it. Was this some sort of ploy? She was here as a suicidal patient- a world of self-harm could be done with a single paper if folded right. Either whoever this person was had more compassion than brains, or had both compassion _and_ enough brains to realize that she wasn't really suicidal.

She couldn't tell which one.

But still. Thinking negatively, she could see no logic, no real motive.

Someone genuinely cared.

Something happened to her face reflexively. Her upper cheeks tightened, slightly painful with disuse as the muscles contracted. She was _smiling_. Very, very tiny, but still. After two years, for the first time, Leah/Felicity/Samantha/Abigail smiled.

It vanished a second later, without leaving a trace of its existence, although her eyes were a little bit warmer. She took her stare off the wall and gently fingered the spine of the book. It was so long since she held one. Some pages were bent as bookmarks and she deduced that it was taken read as bedtime stories. Whoever this was was not only a parent, but a loving one, with a child (she took a shot in the dark) around her age.

From the packaging, statistically, it was more likely a male. A father. The twine was poorly tied and the paper shoddily wrapped. Women were born perfectionists. Not to say that there weren't sloppy women, just saying that the stats told her that there were more sloppy men.

She opened the book.

The letters were quite large and the writing was a bit juvenile, but it still warmed her in a place she hadn't realized was still there. Maybe she hadn't totally gone off the deep end after all.

That night, Abigail- no, _Leah_ \- didn't stare vacantly at the maddening array of distorted patterns on the wall that threatened to drive her to the brink of insanity. No. Because of the kindness of one man (she was certain), she spent the night immersed in the tales of dwarves, princess, princes and late-night balls.

For once, she was a normal girl, lost in the fantasies of her imagination.

* * *

Will slipped the book into the girl's serving slot.

Straightening up, he watched in anticipation for her reaction.

He was disappointed. Her gaze was as vacant as ever, though her eyes were now fixed towards the slat in the door. She made absolutely no move to get up. The stare was intense and he could see an eyebrow lift in what he believed was curiosity, but still, she didn't get up.

Ten minutes later, he was still standing there. And she was still seated.

He huffed a small sigh and turned away.

It wasn't right to stare at her, waiting for her to make a move like she was a monkey in a zoo who was tossed a piece of banana. But still, he couldn't help but feel a little down. He couldn't help her. It was sad, really.

He sighed again softly and turned to leave. His wife would flip if he was more than twenty minutes out. He could come back and get the book tomorrow.

Twitching his head up in remembrance, he fumbled around for a paper bag and pulled out a Bud fresh from the freezer, condensation dripping down its side. Robert would like it and Will didn't envy him in the least. It was the worst hour to be up. Placing it on a table with a note attached, Will turned and left, back into the coldness of the night.

* * *

The next morning, the guard came back to Room 210, key in one hand, mandatory Taser at the ready in the other.

He was ready to go into the room to get back one of his daughter's old favorites. She'd no doubt ask him to read that to her at some point in the near future. Currently they were on a Nancy Drew spree. Of course, pretty much all the books he read her didn't exactly appeal to him, but he just really didn't like Nancy Drew. It was cheap entertainment, even for a nine-year-old.

Just as he was about to put the key into the lock, he remembered that he had never actually seen her reach for the book. Maybe it was still in there.

Crouching, he put his hand in. His heart dropped a little as he felt the crinkly paper-wrapped package, still covered as he had left it the night before. Sighing, he pulled it out and tucked it into the crook of his arm before straightening up. He spared a glance at the girl in the chair, who had turned away from the door, long hair cascading down her back. Again. Horror movie-like. Maybe she really _did_ belong here. Still, he couldn't help but pity her, psychopathic or not.

Turning away from the door, taking the book with him, he completed his check. Waiting impatiently for that clock to read seven in the evening. Hours and hours and hours away. He heaved another sigh for the umpteenth that day. He had a lot of time to kill.

Flipping on the coffee maker, allowing the fuel that kept him running to percolate, Will sought a way to occupy himself. His buddies were still doing their checks in various wings of the building and wouldn't be here for… at least another hour. The rec room was luckily in his wing- the other suckers didn't have the sheer luxury of having a coffee maker at their fingertips.

He idly flipped the package on his lap.

Well, it was something.

Ah, to hell with his masculinity. Boredom drove grown men to do crazy things.

He was going to read fairy tales.

Ripping open the packaging, he took out the all-too-familiar book. He knew it cover to cover. Word to word. He had been reading the book, a chapter a day, for the last two… maybe three years.

Nonetheless, he opened the book.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flutter down and his curiosity was piqued. That came from the book, he was certain. And for one, he never used bookmarks.

Stooping, he picked up a small scrap of brown paper torn from a corner of the wrapping paper. On it was inscribed two simple words, inscribed in- dare he say it- blood? He was initially incredibly happy, then slightly disconcerted to find the message written in blood. But then again, he supposed that she really had no choice. In fact, come to think of it, an enormous amount of effort must have gone to craft the simple message.

 _Thank you_ , was all it read.

But to him, it spoke volumes.

It made him unbelievably happy. In all the years she had been here, he was the only one whom she ever communicated with.

And in the future, it remained that way. The only one Leah ever bothered to communicate with was Will Jackson, the guard. Not the psychologist or psychiatrist or other doctor or nurse- even though she only spoke through written words. She didn't trust even Will to speak to him directly.

It goes to show how limited PhDs were.

No matter what qualifications they had, the doctors never reached Leah. The only person she opened up to was a regular night watchman with a family of his own and a soul.

Sometimes, an act of kindness and a show of a little humanity can work miracles.

The miracle of getting Leah Addington to trust in humanity once more.

* * *

 _Thank you, Reula for the review. Made my day._

 _Anyways, again, constructive criticism is the basis for any good story. Keeps the creative juices flowing. :)_

 _Much love,_

 _Ren._


	4. CH2: (Part Three)- Pulling a Copperfield

**CHAPTER 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.2: The Two that Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.**

"Tell me, Abigail. Is something on your mind?"

Caroline Silva peered over her half-moon spectacles at her charge who was sitting poker straight in her high-backed chair, unmoving, unblinking. She didn't expect the eleven-year-old to say anything- it wasn't as if she had uttered a words to anyone since she walked in through the Caldwell doors. It was almost inhuman, her will to remain silent for that long- she knew for a fact that the girl wasn't mute. It was all in the police records.

Strong psychopathic tendencies.

But since Caroline couldn't get any words out of her mouth, there was no way to say if she was your friendly neighborhood crazy or a potential killer.

It seemed like their average, everyday court-mandated therapy session. She would talk and talk and talk for hours, trying every hook, gambit and ploy in the Psychology handbook to get the girl to say something, _anything_. The girl would however, just listen as expressionless as ever, though her body language betrayed impatience, anger or just plain boredom.

But today, there was… something off.

Abigail seemed as far-off as ever. Her body language gave away nothing unusual either. She radiated boredom and hostility. But still, she couldn't shake this _feeling_ that something was amiss somewhere.

Still, she dismissed the idea. She sat for hours on end with an array of psychopaths- ranging from potential to full-blown. No doubt a little crazy rubbed off on her. Her paranoia seemed unwarranted at the moment. The girl seemed normal. Not, of course, by society's standards, but as far as Abigail was concerned, this was as normal as it got.

A quick glance at the clock made her groan slightly internally.

Quarter past. A little over an hour to go.

Fixing the well-practiced, inviting half-smile, Caroline decided to try again. She had finished playing her hand a long, long time ago. She had already used her full repertoire of mind tricks in her book. The girl hadn't fallen for a single one. Caroline was now on her second tour through her arsenal.

Taking out a pack of playing cards, she spoke softly.

"Let's play a little game shall we?..."

* * *

The rest of the hour passed and Leah got up, not so much as sparing a glance at the psychiatrist who was putting away a stack of cards, a Jenga box, a Rubik's cube, darts and a Pictionary kit. A guard came to the girl and deftly strapped her back into her mitts, about to escort her back to her cell. Routine for the past three years.

Caroline watched her charge leave.

As emotionless as ever, a statue come to life. But still, she couldn't quite shake that feeling. But still, she couldn't think about it now. There were more patients to come and she had to be prepared. As Abigail left the room, she busied herself. The Master of Puppets was next.

If Caroline Silva was a better psychologist, she _may_ have noticed the subtle changes in Abigail's demeanor. Her intermittent soft tapping of her right foot, one tap for every eight beats. A song rhythm. Her fingers, on occasion, twitching. The slight clearing of her melancholic expression before she remembered to consciously replace it.

Something _was_ different today.

Leah walked with a spring in her step back to her padded cell.

Today was the sixteenth of March, three years and seventeen days since she first arrived. Today was also the day she left for good.

Today was the day she escaped her own, personal Hell.

* * *

The raven-haired man rocked back on his heels and he drew in his knees to his chest and wiggled his naked toes in sheer boredom and in anticipation. This was a highly irritating inconvenience in his grand design. So incredibly troublesome.

He had been unnaturally careless.

For the life of him, he still couldn't fathom _how_ he could have been that careless. _L_ wouldn't have been so clumsy. _L_ was perfect.

It was his job to prove _L_ wrong. Give him the perfect crime. Stain his unsullied record of perfection.

Impulse was never a good thing. But still. That woman was just _so annoying_. The equivalent of a squealing pig in a slaughter house. All he could think about while paying for his purchases- duct-tape, twine and buttons amongst other things such as apple and raspberry preserve (strawberry was grating on his nerves a little)- was encircling his fingers around her neck. To feel that blood pumping in the carotid artery. And to squeeze. Gently at first, to feel her squirm and scream under his fingertips, and then harder.

To shut that talkative, chatty mouth for good.

And that was exactly what he did. Though, unfortunately, he had miscalculated the population of Wiltshire. He had thought that no one would come in at ten in the night into a small, cash-only, seedy little grocery store in the middle of nowhere. He was wrong.

Some lumberjack hillbilly had come in for a late-night beer and had sucker punched him.

Beyond looked idly at his chest. It was still tinged a sickly yellow, a week after. He was black and blue immediately after.

He had had to seem insane. So he acted feral, his genius mind knowing that he could more easily escape a psyche ward rather than a jail cell that was meant to host a potential serial killer. If he was arrested, L would know in no time. His work, all his hard work would have been for nothing. Quarter Queen and Believe Bridesmaid would have died for nothing.

Well, not nothing.

The experiments were quite informative. For one, he learned that choking a person with a rope took a surprisingly long time and more effort than he cared to put it. Also, it was more effective to kill a person by decapitation of gouging in the eye sockets. Not to mention more visually exuberant.

He flipped deftly out of his crouch and got onto all fours and started pacing in a crawl, thumb firmly lodged in his mouth. He nibbled softly at the nail.

So the EMTs gave him a sedative and carted him off to this place. Caldwell.

It was more… secure than the places he had hoped to get shipped off to, but it was a good thing that he was an _extreme_ genius. Far better than _L_. He prepared for every scenario, and luckily, breaking out of one of the most secure places in regional California was on his list. At least he didn't get into jail. He still mentally cursed his impulses. It was getting more… and more difficult to control.

The urge… was maddening at times.

Getting bored, he twisted around and lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

A week. A bit of a chink in his timeline, but he could make it work. That gave him roughly… five days to find another victim of the right age and… appeal. This time, he wanted to try something new. Ever since the incidence at the shop, he wanted to find out. Could a human die of internal bleeding if the organs were unharmed? Would it cause more pain?

Five days… was not impossible. But the most _exquisite_ specimen couldn't be found on such short notice. Still, he'd make do with what he had.

In truth, he had stayed as long as he had because he knew that his superior intellect could only take him so far. He could see _how_ to get out, but physically being _able_ to without detection _alone_ was proving to be quite difficult. No, rather impossible. He had used his week wisely seeking out an accomplice. Or accomplices if need be.

Someone intelligent. Someone who still had the ability to think rationally. Someone who knew the layout and routine of this place to the letter.

And three days ago, he had found all three in one fell swoop in a quite unlikely source.

Abigail. Or as he liked to call her, Leah Addington.

- _Flashback-_

 _His eyes scoured every inch of the lunch room. Names flickered by, as did faces. None of them interested him in the slightest. True, they had a penchant for violence and arguably some knowledge in the fine art of killing. But they were all crude. Unrefined._

 _Cavemen._

 _Everybody possesses a sixth sense. Some can sense emotion. Some know that something bad is going to happen before the fact. Some people can however sense when a person of similar wavelength was nearby._

 _Beyond's interest was piqued. There was someone here who was worth his time. Who was… Just. Like. Him. A genius, and quite possibly, if accomplice. And if they made it out, his next victim? He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. After all, he didn't know their age yet._

 _He bit his thumb and stared around some more, ignoring the disdainfully pitiful lack of sugar on his lunch tray. Not even a morsel of jam._

 _And just then, he saw her. The source of the wave of intelligence he felt._

 _A small girl, maybe Quarter Queen's age. Definitely won't be his next victim. Too young by far. She poked at the food on her plate in utter boredom, occasionally glancing up, only to stare back down again. Interesting. She had sensed him too somehow._

 _It was in her mannerisms-her genius. The slight squint as she zeroed in on something of interest. The wide stare as she absorbed every single pixel of detail in her surroundings. Beyond surmised that there was at least a thirty percent chance of her having a photographic, eidetic or at the very least, superior retentive memory. She was closed off to the rest of the world, untrusting and alone. A puzzle piece that just didn't fit into the rest of humanity. Just like him._

 _He had found his accomplice._

 _He yet had to figure out a way to get her to agree._

 _For the next few days, he pondered over the topic. He was running out of time too, and his patience was wearing thin. It was a cavity search day and he really didn't like being poked and prodded in places he'd much rather not be poked and prodded. If it was a regular thing, he'd truly go mad._

 _But it turns out, cavity search day was worth it. Because it gave him his ticket to Leah Addington. Or as they called her here- Abigail Rivers._

 _The roll call allowed him to know that none of them used her real name. The name he had the privilege of knowing because he was special. Chances are that her real name was unused and very well hidden if none at a government-run organization knew her by the name 'Leah.' Such a pretty name too. So much better than Abigail._

 _She didn't look an Abigail to him._

 _The next day, Beyond casually approached the girl and sat opposite her. As he expected, she made no move to look up, but by the way her shoulders tensed ever-so-slightly, she was expectant. Waiting for him to introduce himself, or in some way explain himself._

 _Leah sat there, looking down at her food. She knew that the man that was watching her yesterday was opposite her without looking. She could sense him. She could feel that he was highly intelligent. And equally as dangerous._

 _They were both geniuses of equal caliber. Their conversation spoke volumes, though for the next ten minutes as the inmates were finishing their lunches, only one word was exchanged._

 _Leah got the question she was anticipating in one word._

" _Leah."_

 _Translation: I know who you are and you're not Abigail Rivers. Want to help me break out of here? I need your help, you need mine._

 _Beyond got his answer back as she lifted her owl-like eyes to meet his own grey ones._

 _The answer was in the tiny smirk that crossed her face, that vanished as soon as it appeared._

 _Translation: When?_

 _-End Flashback-_

Beyond smiled to himself in memory. If he planned on living very much longer, he might have considered her his protégée. After all, if L can have his minions- he was one himself not too long ago- why couldn't he have one?

A _successor_.

He spat in disgust. _Backup_. B for Backup. L's replacement. L's _Second in Command_.

The stress was what killed A, driving him to brink of insanity and pushed him over. He killed himself- his best friend hung himself in his room with a rope. Beyond would get L back for what he did. He'd make _L_ go mad, having failed to solve the perfect murder. The weight of his ego falling down on him would surely crush him. Beyond's only regret was not being able to spit on his grave.

He had no doubt that the girl would be an excellent successor- carry on his legacy after he died. But he simply didn't have the time. He was cutting it close at it was already. Time was a luxury he sadly did not possess.

But still, his anger waned. A smirk crossed his face again.

Tonight was the night.

He'd probably celebrate. A jar of jam, perhaps. Blueberry- he was feeling a bit peckish.

* * *

Leah walked along with her assigned guard to her room.

She had moved out of the padded cells on the second level a few months ago. Yet another way to perhaps get her to talk a bit more. She assumed the shrinks thought that it'd be nice if there was more social interaction between her and the fellow crazies.

In her opinion, she liked the silenced cells better.

At least she didn't have to stay up at night, trying to block out the sound of the burly man next door furiously masturbating at ungodly hours. It made her skin crawl with disgust and all-round irritation. She supposed that that was their motive. To complain, she had to speak. And she would never give them that satisfaction.

But there was an upside.

She got to leave for lunch and choose her meals. Not that there was much to choose from. It was all slop. But she grabbed the mac and cheese when she could. The humdrum of other people talking also made the voices go away. In essence, she wasn't _that_ lonely anymore.

Caroline Silva was royally pissing her off today. The same old bloody puzzles. Where the hell did that woman get her degree?

She was like Jon Snow. She knew nothing. About anything.

Leah had finished reading The Game of Thrones- the latest addition to her reader's list, courtesy of her mysterious knight guard, whom she knew as Will. Will Jackson, she was lead to believe. She'd have to steal into the record room just to make sure. His kindness was the only thing that kept her from losing her mind for so long- she owed him a proper goodbye before she ran away, never to return.

Her new living arrangement had given her her pass out of the madhouse.

The man who introduced himself as Rue. Rue Ryuzaki. Strange, strange name and she knew right off the bat that it was fake. Even stranger was that he knew _her name._ Her real name. Not _Felicity_ , _Samantha_ or _Abigail_. Leah. He had called her Leah. He was smart- she saw it in his eyes. Also insane. But still, he was her ride out of here. To get from A to B, she'd take the crazy train if she had to.

In three years, he was first person she had _verbally_ talked to. Can't exactly hatch a Prison Break plot without words.

She knew why he needed her help. He was very new- he didn't know the mechanics of this place. She did. And she needed his help. Why? He was bigger, stronger and faster. He could sneak up and clobber people if he had to. In this plan, they were symbiotic. They needed each other to get out of here.

Over the past few days, both of them had squirrelled away key parts to their plan.

Rue had gotten himself an orderly outfit from the store cupboards and hidden it in his mattress. She had nicked a few plastic forks in the meantime, as he requested, and had tied them in a stack with a rubber band used to tie her plait in place. Having given that to him, he then went on to get the key piece to their little plan.

An orderly ID pass.

Leah didn't need to think twice about it. She knew what the forks were for. Tied together so they wouldn't snap when plunged into someone's neck. Rue had killed one of the staff. The worst part? She didn't bat an eyelid at the knowledge. She didn't care. _At all_.

Maybe she had finally snapped. Maybe.

She was a diversion of course. In case they ran into any trouble, a little girl looking confused and disoriented made any adult pause for a split second before they took action. It was a maternal/paternal trait that was ingrained into any adult human. It was this hesitation that would get them killed, impaled by a fork.

Leah knew exactly what corridors to take. She knew the security camera blind spots, she knew the guard duty roster. She knew exactly how the placed ticked. She was the brains, he was the brawn.

But for Rue, she had just one condition.

He had wanted to make the break at midnight. Strategically, it was the best time. Fewer staff members, fewer possible fatalities. It was the border between the graveyard shift and the early morning shift.

But she refused.

It was Will's shift. Her inevitable escape would be pinned on him and she owed him a great deal. She couldn't do that to him. So, both she and Rue were set to leave at exactly twelve past one in the morning. All they had to do now… was wait.

* * *

Beyond's smile never left his face. His excitement was at an all-time high.

Nothing invigorated the soul like murder and good, old-fashioned escape from the supposedly inescapable. In truth, no defense was infallible. Not when you had a good mass of grey and white matter on you.

He was fully prepared.

Earlier this evening, he had committed his second in-house murder. His guard. Right after lunch, he had asked for the toilet, which was quite a bit away from his cell, and also conveniently located next to a camera blind spot. Upon reaching the door, he had sprinted down the hall towards the blind spot, as if attempting to run to the exits.

As he expected, without calling for backup or alerting maintenance, the guard gave chase. Beyond whirled around with the plastic-fork dagger and stuck it with practiced precision into the man's neck.

Quickly stripping off the guard's clothes and stuffing him into a janitor's closet nearby, Beyond walked confidently with authority towards the tech room. Expertly, he created a keyboard-capture malware and infected the computer with it. Half an hour of hiding under the desk inconspicuously was well worth it. He now had the system admin's password.

Having full power, he changed around the timings of the cameras and their angles so that none of the staff would ever know that two of their cagelings were gone until they either:

One: Noticed physically that their cells were empty. That wouldn't be until around ten in the morning- a few pillows stuffed under blankets was a cheap trick but sometimes effective. Only when the nurses went to see if they had offed themselves in the night would they realize that they were, in fact, gone.

Two: Someone found the body of the orderly stuck in the washer, or the guard in the toilet stall.

Either way, they would be gone like the wind.

Lying down on his back, Beyond waited. Footsteps echoed outside his door, paused for a second and went on down the hall. That was… the third check of the night. Three minutes after those footsteps disappeared- that was go time. The echoes stopped. Go. Go.

Hopping to his feet, Beyond quickly stripped down, putting on the pink orderly uniform and sticking on the nametag, while pocketing the scanner pass. Putting his own clothes around the pillow dummy sheathed on his bed, he quickly twisted his arm through the bars and held his pass out to the scanner. A beep resounded and a lock clicked.

Success.

It was indeed lucky that he was in the newer wing. They had the electronic locks. Unfortunately, Leah was in the older one. Well, it was a good thing he had killed that guard then. Picking up the keys and tossing them into a sock so as to mot make them jingle, he walked out purposefully into the corridor.

He wasted no time. Every second was measured here.

Walking briskly without running so as to not arouse any suspicion, in about a minute, he was in Leah's wing. Forty three… forty four… forty five.

Cell forty-five.

Abigail Rivers.

He could see Leah seated on her bed, pillow dummy deftly disguised. She was staring vacantly ahead, but as he approached, she switched to attention, determination and perhaps a _tinge_ of fear etched on her face. Her fear seemed unwarranted though. Beyond couldn't quite imagine things could get quite worse for her- this place wasn't exactly Disneyland.

Swiftly, he moved forwards and stuck the key into the lock. Twisting it as silently as he could so as to not wake the other sleeping patients, he coaxed the door open.

"Well, come on. Hurry up, Leah."

He urged her and at the sound of his voice, any trace of emotion left her face and she nodded solemnly, coming to the door. He noted that she was carrying a small square object. A book, he guessed. Interesting. How she got that was a bit of a mystery, but as far as he was concerned, he didn't care. He could see no threat from a sheaf of paper so he wasn't the least bit concerned.

Though not being free as of yet, stepping a toe out of her cell when she wasn't supposed to be out brought a rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins. Fucking with the system- it was a taste of the freedom that she would have in a few short minutes. It was intoxicating. After three years of the same routine, freedom was like a drug.

Quickly, Leah took the lead.

"This way."

She ran swiftly through the halls, her mind's eye possessing an image of what turns to take and where. She had unknowingly created a blueprint of the schematics of the building in her mind's eye over the years- every visit beyond her cell adding more clarity to it. That blueprint was guiding her now, as she took a sharp left in a corridor that even the staff was unlikely to know about.

According to all rules and regulations of logic, it _should_ lead to the little flower garden-like area that the outdoor gym/ basketball court overlooked, but was fenced on from. Psychological torture for the patients, knowing that they could never be out _there_.

Leah had no idea what the security was like outside, but again, logically, there shouldn't be anyone guarding an exit that no one knew existed.

Beyond simply kept up with the girl, who looked as if she knew exactly what she was doing. He smirked to himself. He really _did_ know how to pick them. Ideally, as soon as they were free, he should take her to the nearest alleyway and get rid of her. But… there was something telling him that it would be… much more _fun_ keeping her alive.

There was a streak in her that quite appealed to him. He didn't know. He had yet to make a choice.

The eleven-year-old kept up her brisk pace and arrived at a small, hinged in door. Right through there, if her calculations were right, either another, smaller corridor or more likely- a crawlspace. The direction they walked in was spot on- but they hadn't come that far to have reached the garden as of yet.

"It's through there. Rue, break the door down."

Beyond hid a smile. Such a little firecracker to be ordering _him_ around.

"As you wish, Princess."

She showed no visible reaction, but he felt her annoyance and grinned, before charging into the wood, splintering it with the brute force of his shoulder. Pain shot up his arm, but it was worth it. The aged wood broke apart, revealing a tunnel. A crawlspace to be more accurate. One look told him that he _could_ fit, but it would be tight.

Leah went in first and quickly crawled. Beyond found it easier than he initially thought- years of imitating L had allowed him to hunch his back to near-Quasimodo levels and he crawls on a regular basis. About six minutes passed. They had to hurry a bit more- his camera-fiddling might be noticed by tech-analysts at any given time. Worst case scenario, they detected it when the escaped. If they started countering it then, it would give them approximately… nine more minutes to make it off grounds.

Two more minutes passed before the two of them reached the end of the tunnel.

The building was most likely almost a century old- that would account for this passageway's forgotten existence. The grate that had once been covering the tunnel- which was most likely an old sewage pipe judging by the trace smells of rot- had rusted to bits and was little more than pin-like pieces of browned metal on the floor.

The girl was thankful. If that grate was still intact, or replaced, even Rue wouldn't have been able to get them out. Seemed like the gods were looking down on her today. It was quite rare, but she was grateful that they had chosen today of all days.

Hopping down the small ledge that connected the pipe to the ground, she walked forwards silently and cautiously. Behind her, she heard a small 'thump' as a heavier Rue fell to the ground as well. Debris crunched lightly under her foot. She was getting closer and closer with each footstep, she just knew. The smell. The smell of _roses_. It was getting stronger with every step she took and it took every ounce of self-restraint not to just dash over to the exit into the fresh air.

Beyond's eyes were well adjusted to the dark. Though Leah had a bit of a harder time seeing, having eyesight 3.6 times greater than the average human's proved to be useful on more than one occasion. He could see her very well. Her excitement, her desperation was palpable and if he had any soul left, he thought that he would probably have found it endearing.

But he had to admit.

The pip-sized girl _had_ gotten him out. Even he had to admit that he wouldn't have made it this far without her.

A few seconds later they had burst out into a cool night breeze.

They were free.

* * *

Security Officer Diane Ross checked the roster.

Her eyebrows furrowed.

Will had checked out an hour and a half ago from his shift. It was Gary's shift, but the lazy bastard _still_ hadn't clocked in. It was close to one thirty. She'd heard of people being _late_ in the graveyard shift. But this was ridiculous.

Groaning, rubbing sleep from her eyes, she sighed in frustration and turned to the computer screen. Punching in her password, she went to the employee record and activated the mandatory tracer on Gary that every member of staff had to wear- her included. It made her feel a little like a cab owned by some huge ass taxi company, but she didn't complain.

The job paid. So what if they made her wear a little plastic tag?

She found Gary's location.

Toilet on the fifth level.

Diane rolled her eyes. She should have known. The guy drinks far too much coffee- maybe she should get the man a bag of prunes.

She took her hand away from the intercom receiver she was about to use to give the man a good verbal hiding and logged out of her computer.

Let the man take his shit in peace.

* * *

Leah was… surprisingly overwhelmed.

She and Rue were now on a Greyhound bus headed towards New Jersey. Where he got the money for tickets, she didn't care. She didn't really want to know- it was blood money in the literal sense.

She just stared out of the window, drinking it all in. Letting the fact slip in.

She was… free.

The lights seemed brighter, the cars seemed louder, the air seemed more invigorating. She felt buoyant- if someone had cut away the chain binding her to the anchor that kept her firmly lodged at the bottom of the river Thames.

Beyond simply took his seat next to her, gauging her reactions as she was reintroduced to the new world.

Eyes wide, she showed more emotion then than the whole time he knew her at the asylum.

She drank the whole world in- he could almost see the steam as the cogs in her brain worked overtime. He swore that her head would be engulfed in a friction fire.

They would be parting ways soon- that much was agreed upon. She didn't question him- not even when he knew she saw the bloodstained note her purposely held in his hand to show her exactly where their tickets came from. He put another coin on the 'pro' side of her mental balance. Another reason to let her live. She wasn't incredibly morally tethered. In return, he didn't ask anything more from her.

 _If_ he decided to let her live, he would give her half of the money he got from the four people he had killed. That would leave them with around seven-hundred-and-fifty dollars a person. He could easily find some more- she couldn't. She was of too small stature to successfully kill as of yet.

Hm.

A decision had to be made soon. He had around six hours to decide.

Meanwhile, Leah simply continued seeing the world through new eyes, not entirely oblivious to the predicament in Rue's mind. Obviously he was a serial killer and obviously he was contemplating killing her. It was textbook psychopathy from a Psychopath's Guide to Survival. Kill those of whom are in the know. She wasn't naïve to think of him as her friend.

She just hoped that he wouldn't kill her.

Even if he did, she wouldn't regret escaping with him. It was better dying after a few hours of seeing the world beyond the solitary grey walls of Caldwell, rather than after years upon years of the same endless, mind-numbingly boring cycle.

She had done all that needed to be done. She had thanked Will.

She was ready, come what may.

* * *

Will Jackson returned home after his shift.

Whistling a tune to himself, he let himself into his daughter's room and smiled to himself as he saw her sleeping form. Striding over, crossing the room in a single step, he stood next to her and planted a kiss on Emily's forehead.

"Goodnight, Princess. Sleep tight."

Turning off the bedside lamp, he walked back out and closed the door.

Returning to the living room, he picked up his cold dinner from the counter and took it over to the kitchenette to warm it up in the microwave. His wife was probably sleeping, pissed off as all hell. She always complained about him working too late and it lead to an endless string of arguments, but she knew as well as he did that it needed to be done for their survival.

Bills needed to be paid.

The alarm dinged and Will plucked out his food, unwrapping the plastic wrap. Meatloaf. Nom.

Plucking a beer from the fridge wearily, he walked back into the living room, turning on the TV to the sports network. He grimaced. Soccer. It had nothing on the fiercely exciting, heart-racing game of the Gods, known to mere mortals as football. Soccer. Psh, those men might as well be wearing skirts and dancing the salsa. Wusses.

Idly watching the game solely for the lack of anything else watchable on basic cable, his mind drifted to Samantha. Or Abigail. He had given her Game of Thrones. It was apparently all the rage in the stores- no one could stop talking about it.

He probably should have done his homework. Imagine his horror when he realized that he gave an eleven-year-old child a tale about incest, hookers and virtual rape.

Still. He couldn't exactly take it back.

He'd apologize later. Maybe an 'I'm Sorry' muffin through the tray for breakfast. Yeah. That'd do it.

Spearing the last piece of meat with his fork, he chewed and swallowed. Tossing back the last of his beer, he went back into the kitchen to wash up. Maybe Anna would forgive him if he cleaned up after himself. It was one of her big complaints.

Wiping his plate dry, something caught his attention from the very corner of his eye.

A package.

Carefully putting his plate in the rack, he moved towards the dining table. It was wrapped in brown paper and was irregularly shaped at the top, flat on the bottom- kind of like a statue of some sort? He didn't know. Picking it up, he took it back into the kitchen, back into the light.

Knifing the rope deftly, he pulled the paper off.

It was from Abigail- he knew that immediately. The book her gave her was there. _Game of Thrones_ , with its spine bent, thumbed through all the way. The girl had read that whole book in one night? Amazing. On top of that was a blue rabbit. A bit worn and scruffy, it was obviously one of her most cherished possessions.

He frowned. She had sent the book to his house. How? Unless…?

He quickly pulled out the book and turned to the last cover page for her message. It was their established method of communication. And sure enough, he found a note.

 _Dear Will,_

 _Yes, I know your name. I'm not deaf you know, I hear things._

 _This, I'm afraid is the last note you'll get from me. I'm leaving today. I can't stay here anymore and I've found someone who will help me._

 _Your choice of book this time is quite questionable, but regardless, I enjoyed it._

 _I want to thank you wholeheartedly. You are the sole reason I made it this far. I would have lost it a long time ago if it wasn't for your kindness. You gave me hope._

 _I'm sorry for not being able to say goodbye in person. I don't want to put any burdens on you. But I did leave you Marshmallow 2. A replacement for Marshmallow, a rabbit whom I lost a long time ago- but nonetheless, I love it just as much. Take care of it. I wish I can say and do more to tell you how thankful I am, but you and I both know I can't._

 _Thank you again, Will. The world needs more people like you._

 _Goodbye._

 _Love,_

 _Samantha._

He put down the note and felt his heart sink, rise again, and sink. He'd never talk to the little girl again, but she had gotten away from that godforsaken place. But still, he'd never see her again.

He picked up the little blue bunny and smiled. It was perfect- her goodbye couldn't have been any more poignant and meaningful. He had helped someone in his own little way and it made him proud to be human. He hoped that she would live the rest of her life happy and successful. And who knows? Maybe one day, their paths would cross again.

Thinking quickly, he turned off the stove and after re-reading her last words, committing them to memory, let the paper burn. He was obligated to call the hospital, let them know of the escapees, but he would do no such thing. She didn't belong there. She didn't deserve to suffer- that much he knew.

Getting rid of everything tying him to her, save the rabbit, he murmured.

"Take care, Sam."

* * *

Beyond tucked the knife into the waistband of his jeans. God, did it feel _good_ to get back into his white shirt and blue denim. He felt like himself again. The hunting knife, though cheap, balanced reasonably well in his palm and made a smooth incision in flesh, though a bit slippery when going through tendons. It wasn't sharp enough.

But it did the job.

The corpse of the bus driver stuck in back of the truck restocking meat to the mini-mart proof of the fact.

New Jersey. Hm. Much too… grungy for his liking. At some point or the other, he'd have to get back to L.A. He had his masterpiece to finish. Before that FBI woman… Misora, was it? Caught up with him.

But still, he didn't feel like leaving _just_ yet. The girl intrigued him.

He didn't hide the fact that he had murdered their bus driver. He came back with a knife dripping in blood. He had _wanted_ to kill right in front of her, but a young girl and a man coming out in the night from the depths of an alleyway might have been misconstrued. Him alone, people would assume he had just been in there, taking out the trash or taking a piss.

Still, she hadn't batted an eyelid, though the dagger made her eyes narrow venomously for a split second. Beyond put his thumb to his teeth again. Hm. Interesting. Knives angered her. Something with a knife got her to where she was today.

Interesting indeed.

Still, he had a decision to make. Stick her in the back with the driver or…?

"Have you made up your mind, Ryuzaki?"

Beyond snapped to attention and looked down at the small girl who was staring into the distance before she turned her all-seeing gaze onto him. She repeated.

"Have you decided?"

Beyond was quite amused. He decided to toy with her a little, just to see if she mean what he think she meant.

"Decided what, Princess?"

She grimaced again and offered a slight glare, despite her face being still on the verge of being catatonic.

"Whether I live or die? You really don't _have_ to kill me. Rue is quite obviously not your name. I don't know your name, where you're from or what you do, other than killing of course. But still. If you've decided to kill me, I won't do anything. I can't- you and I both know that very well."

Goodie, she _did_ mean what he thought she did. Without hesitation, she had analyzed the situation and come to the penultimate conclusion. In fact, he suspected that she knew from the very beginning.

In that moment, he came to a decision.

She would live. She was too valuable by far to just kill off on whim. Besides, it was as she said. She didn't know him. She wanted nothing to do with him. Hell, she didn't even ask him how he knew her name. She really didn't care.

"No. I don't think I'll kill you, little Leah. You're a smart cookie. I like you, I think."

He offered her a grin and she remained as impassive as ever. He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a wad of money, as well as a small knife- one that she could wield if she needed to.

"But, this is where we part ways- I suspect you've figured that out already. That'll get you wherever you feel like you need to go. I trust you can figure it out. I'll be going wherever the road takes me. Though unlikely… I do hope we'll meet again. Thank you, Princess Leah. Until next time."

Leah was a bit taken aback when he handed her a knife. She quelled her reflex to chuck the damned thing onto the ground. Her back pricked uncomfortably. But the money was stranger still. He was being _nice_. _He wasn't going to kill her_. She knew that she should have been happy and dancing the tango, but she was just confused.

She was being spared. Hn.

"Uh, yeah. Don't end up back in the nuthouse, Rue. I won't be there to bust your ass out."

His grin just became more toothy. For a former mute, she sure had a mouth on her. Leah smiled a little more in return. Serial killer or not, he _had_ just saved her from a world of misery. They had just cancelled out their debts to each other.

A few minutes later, the two dark figures parted ways.

The taller one- Beyond Birthday- walked east. He was going to board a train, a ferry and if he killed enough people, a plane back to L.A. He had his mission to complete.

The shorter one, Leah Addington, went west. She didn't know where she was going- it was only six hours since she left her prison that drove her mad every single day for the past three years. It was a new world for her- she'd go wherever the grass was greener and wherever the wind took her. The world was new and Caldwell didn't have a hope in finding her.

She was finally completely and utterly free.

For once, alive.

She was no longer Abigail Rivers, a bird in a cage, singing the same tune. She was someone completely different and new. A new name for a new life.

She felt like… maybe…

Maybe a 'Brooke'. Yeah. Brooke.

Brooke Smith.

Yes. Abigail Rivers no longer existed. In her place was Brooke Smith.

* * *

By the time Caldwell security realized that seven hours was an _insanely_ long time to defecate, regardless of their level of constipation and that they had three bodies on their hands, mutilated at the throats, it was far too late.

The escapees were long gone.

And never to be found again, for Abigail Rivers and Rue Ryuzaki were non-existent.

Never have existed, never will.

* * *

 _Okay, phew._

 _Good grief, that was a bit of a difficult chapter to write. I love BB. I really do. Inside his mind is a really nice, twisted place. Kinda like Space Mountain._

 _Hope y'all liked it. I be cranking out chapters like crazy. Be warned though, some may take a while. The zen has to flow. I have to find my inner crazy person._

 _Anyways, hope you liked it! Thank you all of you who left reviews. Most helpful, most helpful indeed._

 _Love,_

 _Ren._


	5. CH2: (Part Four)- Little Fun at Big Top

**CHAPTER 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.3: A Little Fun at the Big Top.**

If you were alone, penniless in a strange place you have barely heard of, yet alone seen, what would you do? It is a question asked time and time again through the ages by people of all ages, genders, races and- through the various millennia- species.

So, what would _you_ do?

Begging seems like a solid option- safe. Sitting curled up on the sidewalk, grimy palm outstretched however, does not much money make. In fact, you'll be lucky to earn enough in three days for one hot meal. So, _not_ a good choice. Stripping is the next solid bet. If you have enough willpower to chuck away your reservations and possibly your self-respect and quite literally toss your panties in the ring, good for you! The pay will keep a roof over your head, no matter how shabby, and will give you a couple of meals a day.

Over time, you could even _save up_.

Or, you could simply claim unemployment and live the rest of your days wallowing in hopelessness and in relative discomfort, watching the sun rise and set each day, _waiting_ for the day Death comes to claim you.

Now that _that's_ out of the way, consider this.

If you were alone, penniless in a strange place you've never heard of, eleven-years-old with no chance of getting _any_ sort of job, regardless of how respectable it is, destitute and fighting to evade the very system the government has established to help people like you, what would you do?

Suddenly the options seem a _lot_ more limited don't they not?

That was the exact predicament Leah Addington faced.

The fact that she had survived six whole months in this hellhole, _alone_ , in itself was a miracle. She was still in the outskirts of the big grey city, exactly where Rue had left her. The city wasn't over-populated- if anything, it was under. All in all, it was a grey, ugly world she was living in- a place where trigger-happy mafia would feel right at home.

Not exactly 'kid-friendly.'

She had tried to find work, but the choices left for an eleven-year-old in the employment listings were limited. Very limited. None. Every single place she went to, be it a burger joint or a supermarket, she was kicked out with a pitying smile and a wave before she could even prove her competency.

Damned child labor laws.

The reason she was still here of all places, arguably one of the most grimy, sleazy, seedy places in all the continents was simple.

It was her safest choice, despite the blatantly obvious lack of it.

Rue had left her with a thousand dollars. She could have either traveled over states with it, spending a chunk of it in a complete gamble- her not knowing anything about the world she not inhabited- _or_ she could sit there with a thousand dollars at her disposal, managing her finances as frugally as she possibly could until _some_ sort of opportunity opened up for her.

She chose to do the latter. Renting a room in the most repulsive building around, living on one meal a day (if a dollar-worth chocolate bar or bran muffin could be called such), she lived. Her money was slowly being taken away day by day, like a mouse nibbling cheese.

And here she was six months later.

Flat out broke, down to her last penny. Metaphorically.

To be accurate, down to her last _two quarters._

Leah bit her lip pensively, looking down at the two small coins in her palm. It would perhaps cover her extra-small meal today and then… that was it. 'Poof'. All gone. Just… _gone._

 _That_ was why she had done something something rather… irrational. She didn't like being irrational- it was like an itch- no, a _grate_ under her skin that she quite couldn't scratch. But desperation and fear of total destitution had lead her to do something that she would either come to be thankful for… or regret. Reservations cast aside, she had joined…

A traveling circus.

It wasn't one of those affairs with cheerily bright lights, equally as colorful cotton candy, wide smiles and squeals of happy children. This was one of those fine establishments that catered to the peculiar whims of adults. A kind of circus that danced at the borderline of the law and more frequently than not, crossed it. When Leah had ventured upon the grounds, lead there by a stray flier, she had seen people that she had never before known existed. She had seen a woman insert huge metal _skewers into the skin of her back_. A man had then come and stuck candles onto the sharp ends and upon lighting them, she had belly-danced.

The Human Chandelier, she was called.

Somewhere down the line, she had also seen the Elephant Man- a truly horrendous abomination of nature that looked like the love child of Shrek and Jabba the Hutt. She was _certain_ though that he had a lovely personality.

She had no deformities or special skills likening her to those people at all. All she had was a better memory than most.

This time, though, she got lucky. If anyone could really call it that. Her memory tricks, where she had memorized the order of a deck of cards after seeing it for thirty seconds, had not impressed the eclectic owner of the band of misfits, but he had hired her anyway. Saying that she could at least clean the place. He obviously had no qualms about child labor.

But still, if it paid five dollars a day in pocket money, hell, she'd say yet to anything. Also, there was the plus side of her traveling around the US for free. Although they would pretty much be stopping in the shadiest towns known to man, it was something.

And so, once this month was up and the charming landlord would undoubtedly kick her out, she would be a part… of a circus.

Life was… difficult.

Taking a deep breath, she lay down across her mattress, highly aware that a thin article of clothing was what separated the skin on her back from the decades-worth of grime, slime, bodily fluids and all-round filth. Not to mention mold that could make her wheeze and hack out her lungs. She could have sworn that as she hit the bed, a dust cloud rose in the shape of a skull.

But still, she took it all in stride. She could do with a little dirt- what was a little dirt, after all? She was free. If this was the price, she'd gladly pay it. Even in the asylum was surrounded by a moat of pig crap, she wouldn't hesitate for a second. She'd pinch her nose shut and take the plunge.

No. It wasn't the blatant lack of basic sanitary conditions that got to her. It was crippling loneliness. Right now, she was more _alone_ than ever before.

Although she had tried to be strong, when it comes to the facts, she was only eleven.

She shouldn't _have_ to be strong.

She wasn't meant to be alone.

Another wave of gut-wrenching despair swept over her, consuming her in agony. A single tear slipped down her cheek- the first tear she had shed in years. She'd do anything not to be alone and alienated anymore. Anything. Hell, at this very moment, she simply wished upon a star that _Rue_ was here. Even him. The bastard that had, yes, rescued her, but also left her stranded, knowing fully well that she was going to suffer and suffer _hard_.

Leah wasn't stupid. One prison break did _not_ make them friends. He had wanted to kill her, for God's sake, and though he had chosen to let her live, he had set things up so that she would most likely die. He was a sadist in the fullest, leaving no one he met completely unharmed.

Yes. At that moment, her desperation to hear a familiar voice was so great that she'd chose a crazy, homicidal killer to stay beside her, even if it was just for a few minutes.

She breathed out a heavy sigh.

 _What_ was her purpose in living? Why did she _care_ at all about living anyway, if it just meant more pain… more suffering?

"CRRRRRRAAAAASSSSHHHH!"

A loud noise echoed through the rickety foundations of the building, coming from one of the ten floors below hers. The sound of wood against wood. Leah rolled her eyes, being thankfully distracted from her bout of weakness that struck her once in a while. From the sound of things- as well as the male and female grunts of pain- a dresser or bed hadn't been able to take the force of their… passionate love-making anymore.

In other parts of the world, what was going on downstairs would probably be classified as 'sexual assault.' Not here, though. Here, it was a quiet morning lie in.

As singly disturbing as it was, it distracted Leah from the dark web of inner turmoil writhing inside her mind, slowly corrupting her psyche. Shoving away any weakness- sharpening her mind and hardening her heart, she reminded herself of exactly why she needed to persevere, why she needed to _survive_.

She was living for _them_.

Her family, now six feet under in a place she would likely never visit again. She was living for her mother who loved her until the day she died. Her father who had- until her died- held her at the top of the world… his world, never letting her fall.

She lived for her unborn sister who never had the chance to open her eyes and see how blue the sky was, how green the grass.

Dying now, to be more accurate, dying without _a struggle to live_ would be equivalent to her spitting on their graves, desecrating their memory.

She simply had to live. For them.

Wherever they were now, they would- in some way or another- be looking over her. She didn't want to let them down.

Finding resolve, Leah stood up and walked over to the mirror.

The mirror itself was caked with dust, grime and various substances of unknown origin. However, beyond the many, many layers of… well… shit, she saw her reflection. Compared to the girl she was six months ago, she was unrecognizable. It was a good thing- _she_ could barely identify herself. What hope did the authorities have?

The only thing familiar about her appearance were her eyes. That's about it.

Her hair- once rivaling Rapunzel's in length, was now short to the extreme. One of the first things she had done since she arrived into this Satan's anus of a town was take the switchblade her homicidal companion had given, gather her hair into one big mess, and lop it _all_ off. The hair she stuffed into the lining of her jacket to make it fuller- the winter here was _harsh_. Initially, she was worried about the color and she didn't want to splurge ten dollars (ten days worth of food) on a packet of dye. But, she hadn't needed to fret- nature took care of it all. Six months of not shampooing had made her hair oily and greasy to the extreme, making it pick up any and all of the dirt it touched.

In short, her once lovely deep honey brown hair was now black as pitch.

As one would expect, she was a little more than skin stretched over bone. Cheekbones stuck out in angles, collarbones protruded garishly, as did her shoulder blades. Her skin itself was a sickly pale white, sallow with the lack of proper nutrition. You could only get so much vitamin from a dollar candy bar a day.

Leah had also grown taller. She stood at five feet, perhaps slightly less.

Her stomach rumbled ominously and Leah, with a glance at an old, battered clock she had managed to scrounge around and find after an enjoyable session of dumpster diving, told her that it was four in the evening. Time for the all-important candy bar. She always ate it between lunch and dinner to cover both.

She had avoided stealing for so long, even in her famine, because the fear of getting carted back to where she came from, this time with _no_ Rue Ryuzaki to help get her out was debilitating.

But _now,_ she supposed that she really had no choice. She couldn't _starve_ to death.

That wasn't how she wanted to go down.

Walking over to her bed and picking up the well-worn white coat that she had supplemented with hair, she got ready to face the bitter frost. Gingerly opening the door- the hinges were threatening to give at any time- she stepped onto the staircase.

Leah lived in one of those buildings where the higher up you went, the cheaper the rooms got. With an extremely high risk of a fire from the old boiler hissing away acidly in the basement, meth cooking gone wrong or a good, old fashioned shoot-out, the closer you were to the ground, the better. If that unfortunate happenstance _were_ to happen, she'd be royally and truly fucked.

People from all walks of life populated the stairs. Hairy bikers with gang tattoos who were much nicer than they seemed, average cheating husbands looking to get themselves some strange, friendly neighborhood drug dealers and the generic gun-toting, maple-leaf-hating, proud-to-be-Americans.

"Watch it, kid!"

Leah was interrupted from her musings by a gruff voice and something colliding into her, sending her a few steps back with the recoil. She calmly looked up to see a woman- if she could be called that. The Adam's apple was still centerpiece and she had a five o' clock shadow on 'her' chin and jaw. The man… woman… was glaring down at her, horrendously yellow petticoat flaring, smoke from her cigarette curling, the curlers in her hair bouncing.

She was the woman known to their happy little apartment community as the Trunchbull.

A bully of epic proportions who would have absolutely not regrets about stealing candy from a baby.

"I'm sorry."

She spoke softly, but in her voice, there was no trace of emotion- be it worry, regret or even a shred of fear. She knew she wasn't in the wrong, but appeasing the big woman seemed an easy way to deal with this. After all, she was _starving_.

The man-now-turned-woman looked down at her.

If it were anyone else, regardless of age, she would have shook them down for their last cent. It was how she managed to get by all these years. But looking down at the girl before her, she felt something she hadn't felt in quite a while. A sense of unease, as if spiders were crawling up her vein puffed legs, under her petticoat. It was those _eyes_. Those wide, wide eyes, so wide that they seemed to bore into the very depths of your soul. So wide that they were iris-less, as black as tar.

Reflexively, she stepped aside with a nonchalant grunt. She'd let this one get away.

Leah was a little confused. This woman was the building tyrant and toll-keeper of the stairs. Why would she simply _let her go_? Perhaps all she wanted was a simple apology? That didn't really make a lot of sense, but it was all she had to go on. Besides, she couldn't think straight. She needed food.

Coming down to the bottom floor and exiting through the aluminum door into the cold evening air, Leah contemplated a matter of great importance.

Almond Joy or Mounds?

* * *

The portly man, dressed in a smoker's jacket of the most lurid shade of purple known to man, hemmed in a deep snooker-table green velvet, complemented with a tasteful yellow pair of jodhpurs that was equally an eyesore, marched purposefully in a slow gait.

Being owner of this _fine_ establishment gave him certain responsibilities- one of which was to circle around like a vulture over a carcass and make sure that everyone was breaking their backs working and that he was getting full worth from the five dollars a day he was giving them.

He was one of the very few people born to the world completely and utterly soulless.

Seeing the bright lights illuminating the borderline-Silent-Hill fairground and the garishly colored tents and signs gave him no pleasure… or fear. The people whose taste in entertainment was indeed questionable, laughing and talking, enjoying the sights set in front of them gave him no satisfaction. Seeing the pain and weariness behind the painted smiles of the clowns made him feel no pity.

He felt absolutely nothing.

All he truly cared about was one thing, and one thing only.

Money.

Though he was richer than he could quite truly fathom, it was never, never _enough_. There was a void inside of him that could only be filled with green dollar bills.

His piggy eyes, set in his equally piggy face, which balanced on top of his matching piggy body scrutinized each and every inch of the fairground- his domain, his kingdom, his empire. He had built it from the bottom up, taking advantage of weakness, preying on the ugly ducklings of society. The people society saw as 'freaks' or 'creeps,' he saw as an opportunity. And he _never_ missed an opportunity for success.

Chest heaving slightly as the hundred-meter-or-so walk tired him out a little, he reached the area that was most densely packed.

Men and women who enjoyed the darker side of humanity queued outside a tent that proclaimed ' _The Great Elastic Girl!'_ from the neon blue lettering above it. Frankly, the name could have been a little more creative, but it stuck.

The Elastic Girl was by far his biggest earner. Wendy- he never cared of last names- was one of his first… finds. She was a young, fresh-faced girl from Wisconsin, complete with freckles and auburn hair. She wasn't the type of person one would typically expect in a freak show- she looked more like a country singer than a cage-dweller. As her name suggested, she was very, _very_ flexible.

She was indeed quite popular with the men for an _unimaginable_ reason.

If she wasn't so broken, she most certainly would not be here.

Seven years ago, he had found her lying in an alleyway, beaten, bruised and raped. Seeing her still, limbs sticking out in odd angles made him initially think that she was dead and he was about to move on, but her cries alerted to him that she was amongst the living. Now, if a normal person had stumbled across her, they would have immediately called the police and then taken her to a hospital, offering consoling coos of support.

Not him.

He had walked closer and squatted down, to inspect if her limbs were broken or _disjointed_. Imagine his metaphorical pleasure when her found out that it was the latter.

The ringmaster had then offered her a job.

And being so crushed, body and soul, she had accepted with gratitude- forever feeling indebted to him for 'picking up the pieces.' Whether she had Stockholm's Syndrome or not, one could only speculate.

The gratitude was unwarranted. The ringmaster earned more with the sale of a single ticket than she did in a month. Which amounted to a lot for the fat, fat man. Apparently, seeing her dislocate every single important joint in her body- shoulders, elbows, knees, hips, ankles and wrists- and sink to the floor in a seemingly boneless glob of flesh was singularly entertaining.

Loud whoops, catcalls and cheers echoed throughout the area.

The next biggest earner in his arsenal of freaks was the Elephant Man.

He was even easier to manipulate than Elastic Girl, if that was in any way possible. Gary was an ex-con- the ringmaster loved ex-cons. Leverage, was as you'd imagine, quite abundant. The man had burned his once-acceptably average face in an explosion. Mixture gone wrong. After going around for months, failing every job interview in the first two seconds it took for the interviewers to look at him and process their shock, he had accepted the job the portly man had offered in a heartbeat.

Over the years, he'd argued with the ringleader for a raise, but a simple threat would always suffice in quelling his protests.

Oh yes. Leverage was indeed wonderful.

Finding his legs again, he moved past a green and yellow pinstriped tent. Ah yes. Leotard Suzie. She was also a class act. As long as the audience looked past the inherent cruelty of making a young woman hang upside down from a swing and catch a whirling knife in her teeth, it was a very impressive act. Sometimes, she even switched things up by swallowing swords while balancing on a tightrope.

Which was suspended over more swords that replaced the safety net. Just to up the ante.

The man entered a more sparsely populated area of the circus from Hell.

His breath became heavier and his legs groaned under the immense stress they were subjected to. One less pork chop a day would do him a world of good. He needed to sit down. _Now._ Making his way, he sat on a fairground bench opposite a rather newly erected tent. Deciding that he needed something to indulge in, he pulled out a beautiful Cuban and lit it with a gold (plated, though he'd never admit it to anyone) light.

Taking a deep drag, savoring the slight undertones of cinnamon and cardamom, he relaxed, idly looking around.

His eyes swiveled over to the tent opposite him. Blue and pink striped- slightly moth eaten from being stored for so long. A sign hung overhead, bulbs flickering, being so old that the tungsten in them was close to the finish line.

 _'The Amazing Mademoiselle Futur!_

 _Seek and ye shall find!'_

The sign overhead screamed the words in neon yellow that hurt the eyes.

The ringmaster actually had hopes for Futur- whose real name had long since slipped his mind… something with a… B? He didn't know and he frankly couldn't care less. All he knew was that she was a little pipsqueak that seemed unassuming. At first sight.

When she had first approached him, she had done some run-of-the-mill card trick. A brilliant memory was-yes, impressive- but boring and certainly didn't belong in _his_ territory.

But there was this gut feeling, telling him to bring her into the bandwagon.

She was living proof- risks _do_ pay off.

He had struck a silver mine. Perhaps not yet as popular as the flexible one or the ugly one. But he had a feeling that people, over time, would warm to her. After all, a good psychic was a fairground staple. People were _suckers_ for tales of the future that almost certainly never come true. Sweet words went a long way.

His instincts and suspicions were right- they were rarely wrong anyways.

There was more to her than just memory.

It was proved as she tested her.

The ringmaster knew that he was being robbed. Two Left Feet Bob was proving to be quite a nuisance- his sticky fingers stole close to three thousand dollars and his infallible intuition told him that said man would skip town… soon. He decided to use that opportunity to see if she was worth his time… and his money.

Giving her half and hour to quickly meet with each member of the circus- she could spend no more than a minute observing each one- she'd had to pick the guilty one out of the lineup. In fifteen minutes, she had come back with an answer.

Bob.

The mite of a girl was smart and she was a warrior.

She could read people to the tee. Out of all the people, it had taken her seconds to read Bob like a book.

She wasn't afraid to throw the man under a bus to save herself. If the ringleader _could like_ someone, he'd associate that feeling with the girl. Futur.

That was when he had decided to make her the resident psychic.

In truth, she was a shitty psychic. She was in no way clairvoyant, in no way was she all-seeing. But, her skills in manipulation, in reading people and _knowing_ what they wanted to hear, was what made the girl a success. It was basic psychology. People believed in the future they wanted, not in the one they'd actually have.

The man puffed out another breath, relishing the slight tingling burn down his throat.

In the few weeks she had been here, she had cleaned the place top to bottom, as well as worked her regular hours. For five dollars a day, he felt almost like he should be offering her more money. Key word being _almost_.

The man, after a bit of struggle, managed to get to his feet.

He didn't get here _giving_ money away.

He began to waddle away towards the direction of his cabin again, all thoughts of the youngest addition to his band of misfits already cast aside. He had business to attend to. Expensive business that would put a considerable dent in his piggy bank. _Not really_ , of course- he just liked to think of it that way. In all actuality, it wouldn't even cause a ripple in his pool of money.

Although the cost of hiring people to hide Bob's body in the mountains of Alaska, never to be found again, _was_ indeed, expensive.

* * *

The woman fiddled anxiously with her fingers.

She was nervous. And worried.

She was a wit's end.

If she hadn't hit a dead end over and over again, no matter where she turned, she would have laughed in Julia's face at the complete idiocy of believing in something as ridiculous as a psychic. There was no such thing- _no such thing_. But… desperate times, desperate measures… as they all say.

Her husband. She _had_ to know. She had to know if he… if he…

If he would live or die.

Sweat dripped down her face in anxiety as she stood in the long queue, waiting to meet Madame Futur, who had managed to take New Mexico by storm. Julia simply swore that she had foreseen her success with her new design label, despite not having uttered a word about it. She… had to believe. She had to.

Because her husband was at the hospital, lying there in his bed.

The tumor… she had found out today that it was inoperable. There was nothing they could do. She couldn't take it anymore, the endless worry, the pain, the heartache. She got false hope every time he raised his head to smile at her, or accept a cup full of Jell-O, only for her heart to be dashed again as he crashed once more. Sometimes he was hanging on a thread, sometimes he wasn't.

The uncertainty was torturous.

Even just standing there, still in the unmoving line was torture.

Picking out a Kleenex from her crisp white Fendi handbag, she dabbed her face, careful not to smear her bronzer- especially not in this weather. Her meticulousness about her appearance was a force of habit- in her world, she either had to look and _be_ flawless, or be stepped on like a bug on the sidewalk by the next bitch to walk by. Real estate called for sharp lemon-green suits and cat claws.

Right now, her mind was as far away from her looks as they could be.

She didn't even care about mortgages and commissions anymore. On a normal day, she wouldn't have _dared_ to set foot in such and unsavory place- word spreads like wildfire. She- Rachel Abbott- would have been the laughing stock in her world- she lived in a world of queens and bitches. But, she didn't give a rat's ass about anything but her husband.

All she wanted were to hear a few words.

 _He will live_. That's it. That's all.

It took an agonizing seventy five minutes of nail-picking and toe-tapping to make it to the front of the line, but she made it. Finally. At the motioning of a ticket salesman, she walked forwards, bought a ticket and went towards the blue and pink tent.

A smell of jasmine incense punched her in the face as she stepped into the dark tent. The only light was from candles of all shapes, colors and sizes, making the whole room look other-worldly… ethereal.

A very small woman was seated at a table, palms rested flat on the desk, gazing intently at a crystal ball in front of her. She didn't even spare a glance at the prim woman who walked in, barely acknowledging her existence. For a minute, the grieved woman wondered if the figure at the table even knew that another customer had walked in, but when she opened her mouth to speak, a single, small, bony finger motioned her to come forwards to the table.

She quickly walked and sat down facing the psychic.

The other woman didn't look up yet, but Rachel gave her a quick look over. Thin, extremely so- the fingers and what she could see of the collarbones alerted her to the fact. A heavy peacock green-blue turban adorned her head, hiding her hair from view. A thick purple coat shrouded her almost entirely, making it almost impossible to discern her gender, let alone her age.

After an immeasurable length of time, she looked up and Rachel got the feeling of being drilled through. A thought passed her mind. Maybe… _maybe_ she was the real deal. She certainly _felt_ being read- those eyes were all consuming. A tinge of hope garnered her thoughts. Maybe.

Leah studied the woman before her impassively. As soon as she had walked in through the tent flaps, she had known that it was a woman who had no other choice- meaning she was incredibly desperate. The perfume told her that much. It smelled expensive- along the lines of Chanel or Dior. No woman of such standard would willingly set foot into such a seedy place.

Looking over her, she knew that she was right in her deductions.

But still, she needed to find out more.

She still gazed upon Rachel- who was feeling more and more uncomfortable as the minutes went by- a fact to which Leah was unprivied. Either that, or she simply didn't care. Twenty minutes passed and Rachel was contemplating on letting the woman just keep the fifty dollars.

But then, a few magical words were spoken.

"He'll make it. Stay strong. You and he will have a happy life together in the future."

Rachel was ecstatic, happiness filling every inch of her tattered soul, mending her frayed nerves. He was going to live! Profusely thanking God and the woman for telling her, giving her hope, she put her face in her hands, trying to stop the tears of relief. But then, realization set in. _She didn't say a word- Jules was right_. This woman was a miracle worker!

Leah watched the emotions play across the woman's face in monotone.

It was quite obvious.

On closer observation, the smell of hospital-grade antiseptic and sweat lay hidden under the notes of rose and honey of the perfume. She hadn't had a shower in at least a day and had tried to cover it with perfume- quite unlike a clean-cut society woman like her. She had been at the hospital- obviously by someone's bedside- not just for a visit. She'd been there long.

The wrinkles in her suit also furthered her deduction.

All Leah had needed to figure out was _who_. Who was she waiting there for?

That answer had been delivered relatively straightforwardly.

The woman had kept twisting her wedding ring absently, unaware of the worried expression on her face. The ring itself was a perfect fit, with no uncomfortable edges, so the fiddling couldn't be attributed to a force of habit created by an ill-sitting design. So, husband. Her husband was sick- grievously so. She didn't need to know how- in fact, it was almost impossible to tell.

If only the makeup she had put on to cover the dark circles wasn't so flawless.

Expression and gestures told a story and about Rachel Abbott, they spoke volumes.

Another satisfied customer.

The woman left with a spring in her step after thanking her profusely, obviously to run off and tell her husband the good news. As she left, Leah felt a little more of her humanity crumble away. She had given this woman false hope. She had no clue if the man would live or die. If she was to go out on a limb and wager a guess, she'd say that the woman had had many sleepless nights, assuming that the circles around her eyes were dark, given the amount of makeup. The husband had been suffering for a long time.

Cancer, she'd say. Or something debilitating, like Parkinson's- if she had married an older man.

She didn't know- all she _did_ know that either of those possibilities had a great chance of ending in death.

But, it was against Pappy John's policy to send a customer back sad. Always tell them what they want to hear- that was his philosophy, his mentality. A happy customer comes back. _Make it convincing_ , he always said. Leah didn't want to defy him- this place kept food in her stomach, money- no matter how little- in her pocket, roof… canvas over her head.

Six months.

Six months, she'd been doing this soul-sucking job of lying to people's faces. And she had gotten scarily good at it. She felt as though she had morphed into this inhuman person who defied every law of basic humanity that made a community, _a species_ as a whole, run. Each person she lied to made her feel more empty. She feared for herself- her own sanity.

But she reminded herself.

It was only temporary. She would just wait it out, travel around the country and jump ship when they go to a liveable place. The most liveable place where a traveling circus _like this_ would go to, at least. That way, she could save up more money, not having to waste money on flight tickets and travel.

Speaking of, they would be moving soon. That night, in fact. She'd have to get cracking packing up before the crew come to take down her tent.

Arkansas, she was lead to believe, was their next stop.

She just prayed that they would have packed up before that woman came back to confront her with a sword after her husband dies. Something told Leah that he would.

The line had ended and the circus had shut down. All lights and fanfare had been shut off and the grounds were thrown into darkness. Candles lit at odd places lit the ground dimly- just enough for her to see her way, squinting hard. Her eyes caught a silhouette waving frantically at her and she immediately knew who it was- anyone could recognize that arm flapping like a flag.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEY, BROOKE!"

Leah bit back a sigh of irritation. How Wendy could be that cheerful after a day's worth of degrading work, being an act for scores of people who saw you as nothing more than a novelty act, she didn't know. She slowly picked her way across undone cables to reach the enthusiastic girl.

"Hi. You ready to go?"

Wendy smiled so widely than it was visible clearly like a Cheshire's, even in the dark.

"Yup! Need 'ny help?"

Her southwestern sort of drawl was a gimmick she had been forced to develop and cultivate to give her character some charm in the act, but she had taken it a step further. She had embraced it as her personal identity. It was quite tragic.

Leah forced a small smile.

"No thanks, Wendy. I'm almost done anyway. I'll meet you in the carriages, okay?"

The girl pouted falsely, but then beamed.

"Alrighty! I'll make us some snacks and get us some books- ooh we should have _s'mores!_ "

She sighed quietly and tried to fake enthusiasm. Luckily, the braided girl didn't know the difference and enraptured by her own brilliance at deciding to make s'mores (without a fire, mind you), with a final wave, she bounded off, leaving Leah, thankfully, alone.

Sighing once more for good measure. Wendy was a handful, but she was the only one in the place who remotely spoke to her. She was the one closest to her age, after all. The rest of them were a world apart from her and she from them. Oil and water.

Walking back into her tent, Leah tossed all her props into a box and sealed it with packaging tape. She owned little to nothing else- all her clothes fitting into a small duffel bag. She was done. Done and dusted.

Seven hours later, the circus-hands had made good progress. Tents packed, cables rolled. Wagons set up. Ready to go. After waiting, sitting on a moldy log for about three hours, she was glad. At the signal of Pappy John, waddling past them, towards his compartment, she and her fellow freaks of nature got into their assigned cabins- she, of course sharing with Wendy.

Looking one last time at the grey blur that was New Mexico, the wheels began turning and they were off.

Arkansas.

Leah wondered what that would be like.

Absently chewing on a gooey mess of chocolate, steamed marshmallow and rice cracker, she zoned out of Wendy's one sided blabber and went into her own place, wondering what horrors or wonders the new town would bring.

And so, with that, Brooke Smith- the girl of many names left the big city, moving on to another.

Leaving behind an ecstatic woman who had newly found the strength to shower and change into a flowery white dress to celebrate the good news at the hospital with the love of her life, completely unaware that in three days, she would be wearing black, standing at his headstone.

Saying goodbye.

* * *

 _Oh. Dear. Lord._

 _How I suffered on this. Microsoft Word ATE my document. Just ate it. I mean, it FREEZES. I had already saved it a billion times before that. But then, I press Force Quit (oops?) and my file, sixteen pages strong... is just GONE. The entire file. Which basically means that I wrote the damn thing TWICE. From scratch. Again. Oh. Dear. Lord._

 _Anyways, what's done is done. I take things in stride._

 _Perseverance. Perseverance._

 _Again, love all your comments. They help me and my story become better. Scale the towers. Reach new heights. Yadda, yadda._

Peace out, with much love of course.

Ren x


	6. CH2: (Part Five)- The Blood Chronicles

**CHAPTER 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.4: The Blood Chronicles.**

The black haired man fingered the edge of his blade lovingly. So sharp, so crisp. So…

Lovely.

Bated excitement simmering in his chest, he gently ran his finger over the slightly curved edge. The metal felt like silk gliding over skin, the blade so sharp that he barely felt it when it broke the skin. A small bead of blood pearled on his thumb and he stared at it hypnotically for a minute, mesmerized by it's color. That deep, ruby red. Majestic.

It's been so long, far too long.

He _craved more_. But his master plan had needed self-control. For _months_ he had held himself in. But now… he could barely contain his excitement. Now was the time.

He replaced the bleeding digit into its rightful place- his mouth, and almost shuddered with ecstasy as he tasted the familiar metallic tang he had been withheld from for _so long_. Everything about blood was perfect- the smell, the taste, the color. It was the very essence of human life. It was as close to Ambrosia as the mortal world possessed.

Beyond sank down into a crouch.

 _L_.

L wouldn't win, not this time. Because he had an unsolvable case. And it's completion was visible in the horizon. There were just a few matters to take care of.

Grinning manically, thumb still firmly lodged in his mouth, he straightened and slowly walked off towards the small cabin he had chosen in the middle of nowhere. Slightly disappointed that the blood flow in his mouth had stopped, he frowned a little. But then his expression cleared and a small, happy grin plastered itself on his face.

Never mind.

He'd soon have some more.

As if on cue, a muffled scream and thumping echoed from the direction he was walking in. The grin became wider with every step he took.

Oh yes.

Very, very soon.

* * *

He licked his lips, enjoying the bouquet of flavors dancing harmoniously on his tongue.

It was intoxicating.

There was the slightest hint of sweetness- something almost like honey- melding so beautifully into the ever-present metallic tang. He also detected a note of something more along the lines of sage… or rosemary. He couldn't quite put a finger on it, but it was _delicious_.

He ran his tongue gently over this teeth, trying to get the waning flavors back until such time as he could get some more. Get some more of _her_. He had seen many women and been with most of them- forcibly or otherwise- but _never_ had he set his sights on such pure, condensed loveliness. She was beautiful, she was addicting. He had to have _her_.

He winced suddenly with a hiss of air as his tongue got cut on his teeth- filed to the point of being spiked.

Great.

His mouth was now filled with his own blood that he was so very accustomed to. The majestic symphony of delicate undertones of her blood was now _gone_.

Never the matter, he surmised. He'd have some more.

Soon.

Said woman- more like girl, really- flew through the night, barely feeling the brambles and thorns marring her skin. Bare feet slapping on the cool, wet leaves, she ran, not knowing where she was going and frankly, not giving a flying fuck as to where she was going either. The alcohol the rest of them had pretty much forced down her throat, ( _it's a celebration!_ , they had said) was not sitting well. Her head was beginning to spin and she felt nauseous.

She didn't need to look behind to know that the orge-vampire was hot on her tail- the rustling of the leaves behind her was far too loud to be caused by simply a wild boar, or even a mountain lion. Although, she'd take the mountain lion over the drunk bastard chasing her any day.

Fear.

Fear was something Leah hadn't felt in a long time- in fact, as her heart started leaping out of her chest, pulse hammering through her veins, chest getting tight, not allowing her to draw her breaths in, it had taken a few seconds for her brain to familiarize itself with the feeling. _Fear_. Not just any old fear. _Paralyzing, gut-wrenching, heart-attack-inducing_ fear.

Thankfully for her, the flight or fight response kicked in. She had opted for the prior, the mammoth of a man outweighing her by a hundred and fifty pounds at the very least. She had kicked him in the groin- as Wendy. In a rare moment of maturity, had taught her- and fled into the darkness. But unfortunately, not before he had tackled her into the wall in a frenzy and bitten her neck in what she now supposed was an attempt at an impassioned kiss.

Puberty was a wondrous thing, bringing a woman out of her chrysalis.

But in a place populated solely by men so hideous, violent or downright strange that they could be classified as bestial, it was a kiss of death.

A stitch ran down her lower stomach, but nonetheless, she went on, panting heavily.

She didn't have a chance in hell of hiding. The man so desperately trying to catch her, almost certainly to rape her, had a superhuman sense of smell. He was their hunter, finding them an elk carcass to roast when their provisions were negligible, from seemingly nowhere. A relatively recent addition- only been with them for a year- he was becoming quite popular within the ranks.

He had an acquired taste that the crowd simply loved.

The man drank blood. Him swilling it around on stage in a wineglass, like a connoisseur about to take his first sip, was a nice touch.

He was a freak among freaks- no one dared to cross him. Leah too had tried to follow the masses and steer clear of the man, but alas. She hadn't gone to him. _He_ had come to her. The fact that he was close to forty years of age, while she was a young girl of fifteen did not deter him in the slightest.

On the contrary, her virginity was what added to the appeal. He could taste it in her blood, smell it in the air around her. It drew him in, like a moth to the flame.

Leah stifled a sob in her dress sleeve as she ran.

She couldn't keep this up for much longer. She'd never win in a race against _him_ of all people. He was stronger, he was taller, thus he was faster. Her head start would only last her so long- him clutching his aching balls gave her just about enough time to get ahead by a mile and a bit.

Oh God, what was she going to do?

No one would lift a finger at her getting violated- in fact, it was the norm. Leotard Suzie had gotten pregnant, being forced upon by someone or another- she would never say. One look at that bouncing baby boy's face made it quite obvious though. His resemblance to the Elephant man was quite uncanny. The child became a part of their group, the other females going so far as to throw baby showers.

Suzie smiled and laughed along, as if she was a very happy, radiant, expectant mother.

Leah had been far too perturbed by the illogicality of their joy. She hadn't gone anywhere near the little sewing circle of cooing women. Wendy, too, curiously had stayed away. Her body language had been tense- had she been through abuse too? Leah hadn't been able to determine- there were far too many variables to consider. Maybe she just hated babies. She couldn't narrow in her parameters without making it obvious to even the goldfish-brained girl. Wendy seemed uncomfortable- no need to make it even worse. Leah had left it alone.

If she was going to get raped tonight, she swore one thing to whatever gods above.

She'd much sooner take her switchblade-dagger and plunge it into her stomach than have whatever creature of a child growing in her stomach be born to the world. She'd much rather die than have a rapist's bastard child. She'd suffered enough.

Panic and fear hazing her mind and fueling her body, with that last vow, she continued to flee, hyper-aware of the rapidly approaching Goliath of a man.

Drawn in by his lust for her, and the scent of her blood.

* * *

"MMMMMMHHHMMMMM!"

She put all her heart and soul into that scream, but it made no more sound than a wet dishrag hitting the ground.

Blood, sweat and tears mixed on her face as she screwed her eyes shut in anguish. The cuffs chafed her wrists and ankles and she could hear no rustling or clanking- meaning that she was trapped right onto the surface she was pinned on, no chains involved. Making her escape- if at all possible- all the more difficult.

"MMMMPPPPHH!"

(SOMEBODY, HELP ME!)

The gag in her mouth made it impossible to make almost _any_ sort of noise, yet alone an articulate cry for help. What felt like fabric was stuffed into her mouth so deeply that she was half-choking to death. A sob escaped her throat. She was going to die… wasn't she?

On some level, she already knew that she was as good as dead. It could have been the chloroform haze talking, but she _knew_.

That didn't make it any easier. On the contrary, it made her want to fight tooth and nail for her life. She pleaded God to save her, to let her live. She promised him that she would live her life right if she did, that she would make Him proud.

So far, her pleas were unanswered.

Opening her eyes again, terror unsuppressed in her blue eyes, she stared in horrified fear at the face of her captor.

The human mind was quite ridiculous. Here she was, lying on what felt like stone, chained and gagged, getting sporadically stabbed with knifes of all sizes, shapes and degrees of sharpness, but it again struck her how good looking her assailant was. Out of all the times to admire a man, _now_ was certainly not it. It was irrationality at its very best.

The man had a nest of spiky, inky black hair that looked as if it had never been run through with a comb of any kind. Dark, wide eyes with what looked like tanuki rings surrounding them. Pale as a ghost-no, perhaps paler. His hunched posture diminished his posture by at least four inches, yet he stood at a respectable height. Large, spindly fingers moved delicately over his instruments of torture dexterously, like white spiders. He wasn't the conventional definition of attractive, but there was something aesthetically… appealing about him.

He was also just about as dangerous as he was beautiful.

A great wave of fatigue rippled through her and she felt her energy being sapped from her. Deprived of food and water, already having lost a couple of pints of blood, she momentarily lost the fight from her, succumbing to a stupor that was as close to sleep as she could possibly get, given the circumstances.

Beyond turned around as the screaming and struggling stopped, quirking an eyebrow. Was she dead already? Well, that was… disappointing.

The shaky rise and fall of her chest however told him otherwise. A smirk graced the corner of his mouth.

Oh good. She was alive. He still had _much_ more to investigate. It would be a serious inconvenience if she did die. It was more difficult than one could imagine to find the perfect specimen for his… experiments. She was a rarity, this woman.

Humming slightly under his breath, Beyond turned back to the haystack that he was currently busying himself with. He hadn't _meant_ to let her rest, but he was tired himself. It took far more concentration to gently pry open veins without marring the rest of the skin than to have a field day with a buzz saw. He had to find a more elegant way of killing, one that celebrated the beauty of the victim in death. Turns out that people just don't _die_ if their internal organs didn't break and he certainly couldn't have that.

Grabbing a fistful of straw, he gently twisted it into a knot, tying it off with twine to make a spherical blob. A head. With care, he shaped and crafted the rest of body- arms, legs and torso. He attached a piece of hair he had torn off the woman's scalp onto the Wara Ningyo doll's head, fluffing it up slightly. Taking a small bit of paint onto a toothpick-like splinter, he painted on a face.

It was done.

Admiring his handiwork, smiling slightly with satisfaction, he stood from his crouch and strode over to the table where he kept the rest of them.

These weren't for L. No, this was his _personal_ collection- such extravagance was not necessary for _him_. There was a doll bearing the likeness of all of his victims- he had immortalized them in death. Placing his newest doll next to them, it was a perfect fit. Harmonious, even.

Thumb pressed against his teeth, he hummed his approval and slouched off to where he came from. Picking up the thread once more, he got down to making more plain, traditional dolls- his gifts to L.

Three, he mused.

He'd leave L three this time.

Sinking back down to his familiar crouch, bangs shadowing his eyes and jawline, he methodically set down to working on the said three Wara Ningyo dolls, occasionally sparing a glance at the comatose woman, marveling at the beauty of the sight of the little rivulet of blood running down her leg, the redness contrasting with the increasing paleness of her skin.

He engrossed himself in his work once more, encapsulated by the singing of her blood. Her faint, irregular heartbeat, the soft thump of her pulse, the steady drip of her blood in droplets, falling in regular intervals onto the wood below.

This was Heaven.

His Heaven.

* * *

"Brookie… Look what I got! I know I'm not supposed to but I just _had_ to y'know? That 'lil chinese shop just had the _best_ egg rolls and I know you told me to save up and all but they had a discount and they just taste _soooo_ good and I _know_ that you said that you didn't like 'em, but trust me you'll _love_ them…"

Wendy heaved the laden shopping bags filled to the brim with food into their little cabin. Shutting the door, she set the bags gingerly down, cringing. Brooke was going to lose her shit, she guaranteed it. But _still_. She had to let go and enjoy life once in a while.

No response.

That was strange. Brookie was the most regular person she knew. _Always_ back in her cabin by seven, _always_ ate whatever was passed off for dinner (most often rice gruel with meat from an unknown origin) by eight, _always_ asleep by ten. It was the very reason the pigtailed girl had decided to run to a deli to pick up something nice for once.

They both deserved a treat once in a while.

But this…

A frown crossed her face. This was not normal. And her roommate/wiser half of her didn't _do_ ' _not normal_.'

"Brooke?"

She called out tentatively, just to see if the other girl was giving her the silent treatment for her 'unnecessary splurge.' She slowly walked into side of the cabin sectioned off by a curtain- their makeshift bedroom. Peeling back the curtain, she peered in to find the bottom bunk empty. Brooke wasn't here. Brooke was gone. Brooke was _missing_.

Wendy bit her lip, going back out into their cramped 'living room' that was filled with flowers colored with such intensity that made a person without her level of enthusiasm nauseous. The exact reason why Brooke perpetually lived her life in that sparsely decorated bottom bunk.

She paced the floor, the once-enticing smell of fresh egg rolls now forgotten.

"Maybe… maybe… she just went… out to… pee? Pee! That's it! She probably just needed the bathroom! I'm so stupid!"

The frown vanished with the realization and an ever-fixed smile came back over her face, previous worries cast aside. It was a skill she was very good at- pushing away potential problems. It was her one coping mechanism- her one way of living a lie, a happy life. Her philosophy was a very simple one. Believing the lie no longer makes it a lie. If she just _believed_ that she was fine with her rather bleak past, present and future, she would be _fine_.

So she hummed a cheery tune- the starting song to her ladder trick where she disjointed her shoulders and hips to make herself look like one- and bustled around, setting out cheap, pastel-colored plates and heaping them with Chinese rolls.

She finished setting out everything- sauce in a small dish on the side and looked at her handiwork, a huge grin on her face. It looked fabulous! Brooke won't be mad- she was sure.

Five minutes passed and she became slightly jittery. The rolls looked too good. Far too good.

A sense of unease she couldn't quite place came over her, but as she put that egg roll in her mouth, all her woes vanished, along with her self control. She reached for a second and then a third. Seven rolls later, stomach as full as a gypsy's bra, sweet sauce running down her chin as she patted her stomach contently, she rested back against the sofa.

"Man, I'm so stuffed… Ah, that was _good!"_

Yawning, she stretched her arms above her head, lazying around. But then, her eye caught the clock blaring out 09:30 in neon green numbers. That latent worry simmered to the surface again as she was once more reminded that Brooke was gone.

Even in all her optimism, this was one problem she couldn't dismiss.

No one, _no one_ takes one and a half hours to empty their bladder.

An uncharacteristic frown coming over her weather-beaten features again, all sleepiness forgotten, she thought harder than she had in a long time. No matter how she looked at it, Brooke was almost certainly in trouble. Was she _lost_? Whom should she tell? She could tell Pappy John… he would help her surely… he had helped _her_ , after all.

Her heart told her otherwise though. Her instincts were a lot smarter than her mind was. That man would never help another soul willingly unless he saw the dollar signs.

"C'mon, Wendy. _Think, think, think, think!_ "

Her mind went into overdrive, gathering any and all of the wits given to her by God. Now was as good a time as any to use whatever smarts she had. Lacking knowledge about math, science and history taught in school, her brain had packed away other things- television, survival skills from real life experience and street smarts.

She thought of herself as a detective- it was the best she could do. Gathering up all knowledge she had about mystery solving- predominantly from Sherlock that she caught occasionally on the fairground TV when she had her breaks- she set to work. Evidence. She had to have evidence.

"Evidence… Hold on Brookie. I'm coming..."

She tried her best not to get flustered. This was so well beyond what she was used to, but she _had_ to try. For her, for Brookie. Her first friend, her best friend. For years, she had been alone and her smiles had been faked. But when Brooke came along, her stoniness, her reservedness had done the opposite of ward her away. It had drawn her closer. And after that, eventually, Brooke became her friend and the smiles she didn't have to falsify.

She couldn't lose her. She couldn't bear to live alone in her lie anymore. Everyone had a limit and losing her Brookie was hers.

On her hands and knees, she scoured every square inch of the living room only to come up empty.

Fighting an overwhelming urge to run out into the night and wake the entire circus with hysterical screams, she forced herself to calm down and took deep breaths. She felt weak, she felt helpless, she felt vulnerable. She was at a loss for words. In short, she didn't know what to do.

She hurried off into the bedroom, hastily getting up from having peered under the couch. Chanting a mantra to herself to summon even a modicum more of inner strength and inspiration, she searched. Her own bunk yielded nothing- it was undisturbed and tidy as it always was. Brooke's bunk was messier, the sheets knotted- she had been sleeping in it.

Looking under the bed, she knew immediately that something was very, very wrong.

Reaching in, she shakily pulled out the green rabbit the tacit Brooke had a soft spot for and held it in her trembling fingers.

"Oh Lord."

She clutched it to her chest, tears falling. That soft toy- Brooke never let it _touch_ the ground. But now, it was torn, the stuffing leaching out of a gash in its stomach, a button eye hanging by a single black thread. Covered in dust and grime, she knew immediately that she was in trouble. Then, Wendy spotted the switchblade that she carried around everywhere on the bedside table.

She was also unarmed and had left in a hurry.

"Oh Jesus."

She sat down heavily on the edge of her roommate's bed and felt the guilt and panic rise in her throat. While Brooke was in trouble, she had been _eating egg rolls_. God, how stupid was she? She had hid her worries before… now… now, was she too late?

Had she been taken? Or had she left in a hurry on purpose?

Unanswered questions swirled in a vicious cyclone inside her head. Bile burned her stomach and oesophagus. She felt sick to the core.

But then, she saw something that, in a rare moment of superior intelligence, clued her into what happened. _Exactly_ what happened. A vase, _her_ blue vase, lay on the floor next to the dresser and dripping from it was what looked like blood. No, what _was_ blood. Wendy's eyes hardened.

Brooke was taken by force. There was no more doubt.

She also instinctively knew by whom. She had seen his lingering glances aimed in her direction when the two of them walked together back to their cabin. She had seen the hunger in his eyes that she had seen in so many eyes before. Brooke, despite her maturity, was too innocent to notice. But Wendy… Wendy was not. She had been through things that scarred a woman, made sure they never forget.

There were obviously a myriad of other circumstances, other possibilities and other outcomes that a well-seasoned detective would consider. But she was no detective. Wendy ran with the wind, doing what her gut told her, what _life_ had taught her. She simply _knew_. It was ingrained into her instincts. She knew.

She had not an iota of proof, but she knew that the hunter-blood-drinker was after Brooke. And from what she had seen, he planned on raping her tonight. He planned on breaking an already broken girl on yet another level- the pain of which she full well knew.

It wasn't often that Wendy showed any negative emotions of any sort, and from her appearance, it was very hard to say that a fresh-faced, freckled, pleasant-looking girl was even capable of such a thing. But at that moment, the thought of Brooke suffering the way she had in the hands of a man put an expression on her face so frightening that she seemed almost demonic. Any trace of her cheer had left- all that was left was absolute anger, rage and determination.

Running into the kitchen, invigorated by the surge of adrenaline, she snatched the rusted knife they kept for emergencies and cutting down their tent ropes. After a few fumbles in the drawers, she came upon a flashlight.

Armed with nothing but a dull blade and a light, she ran off into the night.

Hoping and praying that she wasn't too late.

The flickering beam of the flashlight held, despite the batteries being months, if not years, old. It was a good thing too- the moon was absolutely no help. There was little to no light, and the little bit of light that _did_ make it through the tree canopies was tinted with a slightly reddish glow.

How very apt- it was almost poetic, the timing of the Universe laughable.

It was a night of the blood moon.

* * *

He hissed through his teeth as his knife ran through her smooth skin like it was butter. The blood bubbling below, a deep red, lay there within the gash a moment, and then, as if it had a life of its own and realized that it was free of its mortal fleshy bindings, seeped to the surface. It was better than he had ever dreamed, the pleasure almost orgasmic.

The woman cried out in fear and agony, naked body contorted as tight as possible given the limited range of motion, but her paid no heed.

Sliding the blade along her breast bone, he was careful not to break the skin. He didn't want to- not yet, anyway. It was an experiment, after all. He needed to see which arteries bleed the fastest. Of course, logic lead him to the wrists, femoral artery and the carotid… but, where was the fun in that? The fact that she was naked did absolutely nothing for him- he was indifferent to various stages of undress.

All he needed, all he craved was the blood.

Clothes just got in the way of the blood. It was simply inconvenient- clothing.

"Please… Please… just let me go. Please, I have a family..."

He had taken out the gag to make his auditory experience a bit more fulfilling- the cinema was always better with the surround sound after all. But the begging did absolutely nothing for him. Was all of humanity _this_ stupid? They they not know how to judge character? Surely if they did, they'd realize that he was a ruthless killer who took the utmost pleasure in what he did. That _begging_ of all things, would do absolutely zilch in their favor.

Besides, that _line_. It was getting old, boring and frankly, annoying. Behind his bangs, he rolled his eyes and worked to stifle the scoff. _Family_. Statistically, around ninety-six percent of women in the world are mothers. Why she would believe that such a cliched line would get him to release her, he didn't get. Was it supposed to make him sentimental? He _just didn't get it_.

The maternal bond was something he didn't care to understand. Something he'd _never_ understand. Somethings genius and intellect didn't encompass. He knew he wasn't _normal_ in the least. But the thing was, he never strived to be. He was fine being him. In fact, he rather liked it.

"Please..."

Beyond became irked. The woman was beginning to increasingly grate on his nerves. It was _very_ irritating. The incessant begging. Wordlessly, he slowly put down the scalpel he was working with and walked over to the operating tray, picking up the gag.

"Ple… HMPHHH!"

He roughly stuffed it back in. The whimpers and waterworks continued, but at least the pitiful whining had stopped. It was sad, really. If only she'd been a screamer. The barn had _wonderful_ acoustics- it would have been a real symphony to his ears.

But alas, one cannot have it all.

His fingers brushed delicately over his instrument. Which one… which one?

A little game of mental eenie meenie later, he grasped a small switchblade. A smile tugged at the corner of his cheek as his very lucid memory recalled a certain little girl he had once set his sights on- his protege. It was still one of his regrets- not being able to name her his successor. His plans then had been different… but, he'd since then decided to stick around and have a bit more fun being L's evil twin.

He idly wondered as to how she was doing. If she was still alive that is.

Chances told him that she was dead six months of being left in New Jersey. But… something told him otherwise. She's a real trooper that one.

The muffled scream from his bound victim brought him back from his little walk down memory lane and he frowned. Loud-mouth, this one was.

He irately sighed and pouted slightly and chided her mockingly.

"Now dear, please do the world a favor and kindly shut up. There's not a living soul out there that you can even telepathically ask for help from. Your useless whimpers do nothing but dry your mouth."

The woman responded with a fervent, pleading gaze- like a doe in the headlights. Some people just never learn.

Opening the blade, he pondered.

"Mmmm. Where next?"

Sticking his free thumb in his mouth, he contemplated between his target areas. Lower legs were done- the veins bled out surprisingly little. Upper thigh, he'd save for last. Didn't want her dying too quickly after all. Stomach? Stomach was good. Slow bleed- eventually fatal of course. But too much fat to find a vein. Elbows were also gushers.

The blade traced the clavicle and the woman cried at the touch of the cool metal, shivering in fright, goosebumps rising.

Smiling a little, he set himself a little challenge. How much could he cut and _not_ break the carotid? Licking his lips, he got down to business.

Screams broke through the gag and rang around the room hauntingly, pleasing him greatly. _That_ was what he'd wanted all along!

Beyond was right- in fact, he was never wrong.

None but a lone owl in the process of catching its field mouse heard her cries. Even that creature didn't spare a twitch of its head at her pleas.

She was none of its business.

It simply didn't care.

* * *

Leah stumbled across the ground, unable to take anymore.

Pain was all she felt now, her knees too weak to bear her weight for much longer. She had run out of energy, stamina and adrenaline. Only her will to live and _not_ be raped kept her going, half-running, half-walking when standing, scrabbling and clawing her way through the foliage when she fell down. She wouldn't let him near her. She wouldn't.

Despite her fervent thoughts, she knew the bitter truth.

He was faster, stronger and better fed.

If he _wanted_ to rape her, he would and she'd have no escape. It was the truth in all its logicality and glory and boy, was it a bitter pill to swallow.

At the very thought of a great, hulking beast of a man even _touching_ her skin, she gained new energy from her desperation and grunting in pain, scratched her way across the ground, no longer possessing the strength to stand up. She was fighting tooth and nail. She'd fight for her life until her fingers were reduced to stubs. She'd never really gone down without complaint- if she had, she'd be dead by now.

"Nhn. C'mon Leah…"

Panting, she redoubled her efforts. It was becoming harder and the red demon in her brain chanting ' _give up', 'it's useless'_ and things of the sort was making itself louder and more obnoxious. What was worse was that her body was beginning to listen to it. She was simply too tired.

She knew that she was about eight miles from camp. She had sprinted all the way. If she died today, no one would ever find her body. Not that anyone would _look_.

Leah gritted her teeth, refusing to cry.

She would _not_ die. Not like this, not today. She will not desecrate her parents' memory. Her sister's memory. She was living for all of them too.

Her arms gave out and she felt into a heap onto the compost-like soil.

In panic, she tried to hoist herself back up into a crawl, grunting under the strain. Alas, it was to no avail. Her arms simply felt like lead- they didn't feel as it they were even _attached_ to her. She couldn't twitch a finger, let alone _crawl_.

A tear fell. Then another.

This… this was how it ends. How pitiful.

Despite the fear and apprehension, she felt an insane urge to laugh up a storm. It felt so unreal- as if it was some horrible, bad dream that she could just wake-up from and brush off the next day. She'd heard the stories, listened to the tales, but never did it even cross her mind that _she_ could one day end up a victim. Now, here she was, lying face down in the mud, a corpse with a heartbeat.

Chances were that come tomorrow, provided that they _did_ find her, she'd end up surrounded by yellow tape and uniforms. Forever immortalized in some brown police folder in yet another cabinet. Jane Doe, they might call her. Or Brooke Smith.

A guttural laugh escaped her- halfway to a sob, too.

Her last bout of strength left her and she simply lay there like an abandoned rag doll. She felt sleepy, so incredibly sleepy- the cold chilling her to the bone, hypothermia beginning to set in. Again, the irony. Her escaping into the forest to escape a sexual offender would eventually kill her if he didn't. How cruel the fates were.

There was silence, only interrupted by the hoot of night owls and the sound of leaves falling off trees. Being paralyzed, but conscious, she had become hyper-aware of all the noises in the forest, being utterly deprived of all other senses.

Ten minutes or so later, she heard it. A sound that made her heart palpitate and her body go into a useless frenzy that got her absolutely nowhere- her muscles were entirely exhausted.

The unmistakable sound of men's work boots crunching the snow and leaves as they walked slowly towards her. This was it. This was the end. She couldn't bear it any more. She did the only thing she could. She shut her eyes and for the first time in half a dozen years, prayed. She prayed for salvation or at least an easy end devoid of much pain.

Never could she have imagined the cost of such a wish.

The man had smelled her scent more strongly in the air for the last mile or so and took his time coming. He too, was tired, but he could sense that it was nowhere _near_ how exhausted she was. He was a hunter after all. Giving chase was all good fun, part of the excitement. He grinned widely as he entered the clearing and glimpsed the dark figure huddled on the ground.

All in all, she looked dead. But he knew she wasn't- her blood still sang to him. _She_ called to him.

He drew in closer, prolonging the sensuous torture as he simply waited to see her face, feel every square inch of her on his body, hear her moans (screams, rather) and taste the crimson liquid that ran through her that had made him so _maddeningly_ intoxicated. It was all worth the wait. Each step revealed her with more clarity- first the brown of her hair, then the whiteness of her skin, next the slenderness of her frame.

Beauty- this was called. Sublime beauty. And soon, she'd be his.

Taking the final steps, he called out in a half-crazed, manic whisper.

"Gave me quite the slip there, sweetheart. Ye made finding ye _quite_ difficult. Never matter, yer mine now."

Hearing his throaty voice confirmed her worst fears and Leah felt the urge to scream so that somebody, _anybody,_ could come to her aid. But she didn't. First off, she _couldn't_. Her throat was parched and she was so very tired that it had become an uphill battle to _breathe._ She couldn't afford to think about shouting, honestly. But even if she could, she wouldn't.

She'd never give him that satisfaction.

Fingers sunk into the ground knuckle-deep, she braced herself, tears running freely down her face. At the faint jingle of metal, she shut her eyes and waited, come what may. She had fought, fought as hard as she humanly could have.

The man leered and licked his lips, almost shuddering with bated anticipation as he loosened his belt. He tugged of the leather from his hips and pointedly tossed it to the ground, making sure the girl knew what she was in for. Then, he just couldn't wait any longer. All self-control lost, all caution thrown into the wind, he ran up and jumped onto her back, straddling her lasciviously.

He waited for a reaction- a scream, a cry. But he was disappointed. Nothing. She didn't say anything, she didn't do anything. She simply lay there, weak and cold.

Quickly becoming enraged, he snarled, tugging a thick, matted strand of hair sharply. A grunt of primal satisfaction came from his throat as the girl clawed the ground deeper and cried out ever so slightly in pain. Good. She was still conscious. With a well practiced hand, he slickly removed the foil off a condom with his hand. It was a precautionary measure of course.

Not to prevent pregnancy. No, just in case the authorities _did_ manage to find her. He wouldn't bother lugging a half-alive girl whom he was done back ten miles with him, and at the rate this was all going down, he wouldn't have to kill her with his own hands.

Funny how things just worked out.

Leaning forward, he whispered in her ear.

Leah, quite out of it, was unable to comprehend a single thing the vile man was saying- not that it mattered anyway. The hot weight of him on her back, the sickening feeling of his moist breath in her ear, the sense of dread- it was all quickly sucking whatever life she had in her body out of her. She could feel her death coming- she just hoped that her family would forgive her for coming to them so soon.

Mother. Father. Sister.

At least there was _some_ light at the end of the tunnel after all.

With that last thought, her mouth stretched into a tight grimace of a smile. She didn't have to _feel_ any of this. She could see no exit- why suffer when it was unwarranted? So, she slowly closed her eyes, taking in for the last time, the trees, the moonlight, the fresh dewy smell of grass and mud- everything except the serial rapist on her back. The world was really a beautiful place. People should appreciate it more.

Just before she closed her eyes however, she glimpsed something- a black blur. A scream that sounded very familiar. _Wendy_? No. It couldn't have been. Leah dismissed the thought, her brain far too foggy to think about anything clearly. Nonetheless, she strained to open her shut eyes again, to see what was most likely a figment of her imagination, giving her a last chance to wave goodbye to her one friend.

The smile returned to her face as she sank into oblivion.

Goodbye, Wendy. Thank you. For everything.

The blackness turned to whiteness.

She idly wondered. It was a tale as old as Time itself that one's life flashes before their eyes in the moments before death. Was it true? She turned and walked into the light without a moment's hesitation. She supposed she'd find out soon enough.

* * *

Wide, glassy blue eyes stared at the slatted wood on the roof of the barn, unseeing, unfeeling.

She was dead. Her pain and torture over.

It was up to whatever God she believed in to decide her fate. Hell or Heaven- she'd find out soon enough. She was finally free of her mortal bounds, free from _him_.

Her blood had turned syrupy, congealing rapidly now that her heart had long stopped pumping. It dripped from her arms, legs, chest, face, hair, toes- you name it. Beyond gazed fascinated at the drops, fixated upon its darkening color. Once bright red and fluid, it was now darker and thicker- like half-set jelly.

No. He put his finger on it. Exactly what it looked like.

 _Strawberry jam_. It looked like strawberry jam- the deep, rich color, the thick consistency.

He licked his lips, suddenly aware that he was- in fact- quite sugar deprived. He was famished. Enraptured by his latest victim, he had gone a full day and night without so much as a drop of water. He had, of course, tasted her blood a little- but that didn't _count_. He stood up, gently putting away the knife that had finally taken her life. A small, serrated pen-knife-like blade. He didn't particularly like it- it cut too jagged.

Shuffling off in the direction of the haystacks that he had transformed into a makeshift living area, he rummaged around in his stocks and uttered a sigh of satisfaction as he came upon a jar of sweet deliciousness. Popping the cap open, he unceremoniously scooped out a blob with two fingers and stuck it in his mouth, relishing in the tang of strawberry.

Mm. Delicious.

Eyes occasionally drifting off to the body that was still quite warm- not yet corpse-in-the-ground cold, that was- he devoured the jam.

She was a real trooper- she had fought for every last breath. Frankly, she'd lasted more than he had expected. He had made it to the breastbone and chest, peeling away the strips of skin in between her ribs so that he could _see_ her heart beating. So _wonderful_. None of the others ever made it that far. It was only when he had opened up the artery in her elbow that he'd seen her heart stop.

Such a shame that he never got to see the fountain spray from her carotid, but he was okay with it.

He'd seen it plenty before. Commonplace, really.

Two fingers in his mouth, forgotten, he stared owlishly at the ceiling. What next… _whom_ next?

He'd have to pick a place of his fancy- somewhere along the west coast maybe? Something different, something more daring. He had to give L variety after all. Variety is the spice of life, is it not? One thing was for certain. He had to pack up, scrub the place down and leave it by tonight. Even though it was such a sparsely populated area, he didn't take chances when unnecessary. Not since his little stint in the mental hospital.

Shoveling more jam into his maw of a mouth that was almost unhinged in his hunger, he looked down at himself in distaste.

He was positively filthy. His white shirt was stained with blood that was a muddy brown- that wouldn't do at all. There was _nothing_ appealing about that- it was blood's equivalent of sauerkraut. Smelly and gross-looking. Covered in hay, he was most certainly not presentable- he would stick out in public transportation like a sore thumb.

But there was nothing he could do about that- not yet.

Tossing the now empty jam jar into a duffel bag, he picked out a black hoodie that covered most of the tell-tale stains. The jeans, he brushed over with some mud, not really bothering to pick out his spare ones from amongst the mess in the bag. He'd wear those after he'd showered. He'd have to break into a stranger's house for that- something he had no qualms with.

He crossed the room, slouching, hands in his pockets.

Taking a last look at his victim, he crossed her arms modestly over her chest and lay a white sheet over her bottom half like she was some Grecian goddess. Artfully placing the prepared dolls- one on her forehead, one on her navel and the last on her toes, he stepped back. It was more… visually appealing. He'd considered pinning the dolls onto the wall as he'd done before, but… she was a little more special- she had made it the furthest and had pleased him greatly.

She deserved a reward.

Recalling from memory exactly what he'd touched and left any trace of DNA, he wiped the place down clean. Mere _evidence_ would never stand the chance of catching him- he was infallible to the law. Fifteen minutes later, he stood at the barn door, duffel slung across his hunched shoulders, taking in the view one last time, committing it to memory. Sublime.

Now for the finale.

In a place like this, it would take weeks or- God forbid- _months_ for them to find the body. In fact, they may never find it, unless some poor homeless sod decided to stumbled in here for shelter. But by that time, the body might be far too decayed for recognition- he simply couldn't have that. His beautiful artwork- it couldn't be ruined just like that. L had to see. L had to _know_.

He needed L here within the week. He needed to attract his attention.

Pulling out a small can of gasoline, he poured it onto the slightly damp ground, careful to keep the accelerant away from the barn and the body. Colored ripples appeared where the fuel met the water. Walking away a safe distance, he struck a match and flicked it over and the grounds blew up in flames. The police and the firefighters would be here in the next ten minutes.

Taking another second to take in the pristine beauty of the orange flames, he began to walk away.

Twenty minutes later, firefighters rounded the corner and the men that charged into the barn in a flurry came out just as fast, those who had had breakfast throwing it back out and those who hadn't bothered dry heaving to the point that they felt as it they were trying to birth a lung.

Half an hour later, the coroners took away the body, thankfully wrapped in a black bag and the evidence, including three straw dolls, was carted away to the police station.

Meanwhile, Beyond was safely on his bus, looking unassuming and remarkably civilian-like. He was long gone, en route to his next destination, which was currently undetermined. Simply another man in a hoodie staring monotonously out of the window, harmless bag at his side. An old lady in the seat behind had even offered him chocolate chip cookies, which he had graciously accepted.

It was a universal truth. Grandma's cookies were always the best.

At some point in the day, a phone rang in an undisclosed location Montebello, Los Angeles. A man with an all too familiar hunch shuffled up to his laptop and attached his phone to it, turning on the voice distorter. He had already deduced what the topic of conversation would be- after all, no-one called him for a tea party or coffee. Nor did he want anyone to. He'd rather not set a foot out of his bunker.

The was only one topic anyone on that phone would bring up, only one alone. It was a deduction hardly worthy of praise.

"Mmm, heello."

A woman's voice answered.

"L. There's been another one."

* * *

"LET GO OF HER, YOU SICK _FUCK!"_

The man swiveled around in surprise, hastily standing up to face his opponent. Her face was shadowed, but her voice was vaguely familiar. So enraptured in his newest prey, he had failed to sense the new presence in the air. A smile came onto his face, threatening in the highest degree. He suddenly remembered who the voice belonged to. The bitch's… Brooke's friend. The bendy one.

What was her name again? Wendy…?

"Well, love, if ya wanna join the party, just ask."

He'd seen her around a couple times and she had seemed to no possess a negative bone in her body- always unicorns-crapping-rainbows happy. He suspected that this tough-guy-with-vagina act was all a show. She'd fold. Anyways, two's company, three's a party. The more, the merrier.

The freckled girl had a white-knuckled grip on the old knife, her hand shaking in barely controlled rage. A flood of memories came back-it made her feel sick and vulnerable, yet empowered at the same time. She was determined. _No-one, especially not Brooke would go through what she did_. This man… he was sicker than she had thought. More twisted. She just knew that he'd kill Brooke.

A glance at the still figure on the ground brought a lump to her throat. That is, if she wasn't already dead.

The man quickly reached into his own pocket while the pigtailed girl was distracted and whipped out his own, markedly sharper knife. A hunter's knife, the dagger tip curved and gleaming. Wendy snapped back to attention at the flash of silver, stifling the instinct to run away and hide. No. _No more running!_ She was so sick and tired of losing everything she remotely cared about.

Holding her wielding hand with the other to steady it, she threatened him.

"Let her go… or… or I'll kill you, I swear it."

Anger flooded her system again, making it more and more difficult for her to think straight and hold the knife still. Years upon years of suppressed rage bubbled to the surface in a flood. There was inherently nothing worse than making a happy person angry. Nothing.

The man however, thought it a bluff. He sneered, unaware of the depth of her rage. All he saw was a shivering rat of a girl, maybe about a quarter of his own size, holding a knife that was both too big and too blunt. Pathetic.

"Yeah, Ginger? What you gunna do?"

Sucking in a deep breath, she tried to calm herself down and stop the shaking. But that smile, that _infuriating smile_ pissed her off even more. He was going to _rape_ her and he was _smiling_. Brookie. Brooke. He licked his lips, his salacious grin widening even more and she snapped. The thread reining her in snapped and she flew at him in a frenzy.

The man's eyes widened.

He hadn't quite anticipated her reaction fully. He didn't expect her to actually fight. Nevertheless, he had the upper hand. He was stronger and bigger, with a better knife. She was dead standing.

What he forgot was that she was flexible. Far more flexible.

Wendy brandished the knife in mid-air, trying to stab down on the hulking man, not caring where as long as it _hurt_. She had a closet sadist that even she didn't know about. She wanted him to hurt, to _burn_ in agony as so many women did at his hands undoubtedly. The man, on the other hand, had a lot of trouble landing a blow. She was springing in the air, twirling and twisting in ways normally deemed impossible by the human body.

He hissed and grunted in frustration.

"Hold still ya fuckin' bitch!"

Another shot of pain rippled through his bicep as she stabbed down once again and he swore blue murder. He'd had enough of this foreplay. He quickly bent down and picked up a particularly heavy branch rotted off a dead tree. Waiting a tick for her to come at him with impassioned rage, he swung it in an arc, pleased at the sickening thud it made as it met her head.

Wendy all but flew into the shrubbery. Blood flowed freely down her face and her vision doubled. Her world shifted in color- red to white to grey to black and back to grey.

"Nhhh."

She slumped against a tree.

The man was satisfied. She'd either be out for a good while or was dead- neither of which concerned him in the least. He walked back toward Brooke, knife in hand to cut away her clothes. For one night, there had been far too many distractions.

Wendy was delirious, but she could see the fuzzy shape of the man moving toward Brooke and kneeling over her- on top of her. Cutting at her shirt. Fury filled her again, clearing her mind again. Her own body couldn't take much more- but she had to try. One last time. For Brooke.

Slowly straightening, she stood up and charged as fast as her legs could carry her, throwing all her energy and soul into one last desperate act.

The man turned wide-eyed to see her coming, but he couldn't do anything.

She was too fast.

She thrust her blade into his chest cavity so hard that not only did the knife puncture his heart and some of the pleural membrane, but her hand itself felt the warm wetness of his internal organs. He stared for a second down at his chest in disbelief and then frothed red at the mouth, eyes rolling back into his skull. He fell back in a heavy heap.

Wendy sank to her knees, feeling weaker and weaker by the second.

Clutching her torso, she crawled towards Brooke, hoping to Heaven and Hell that she was still alive. Too weak to make the effort to actively lift up her wrist and feel for a pulse, she collapsed her head onto her chest, ears listening intently as they could to hear one.

They were faint, but present. Relief filled her and she would have laughed in happiness if she could have.

Brooke was ice-cold to the touch- even Wendy knew that she wouldn't last much longer in this cold. Doing the only thing she could, she mustered the last of her strength and clambered on top of the young girl, sharing her body heat with her in the hopes of keeping her alive.

A tear fell and dried quickly on her cheek, the night being so cold that it didn't have time to complete the journey.

 _Brookie, please live. I love you. Please. Live._

* * *

This couldn't be Hell could it?

It was so… warm. A nice, comforting goose-feather-duvet-in-the-middle-of-winter warm. Not the burn of Hellfire. Well, what do you know? Somehow, despite the great atrocities she had done in her young life to survive, Leah Addington had made it to the Pearly Gates and beyond. A small, woeful smile on her face, she strolled on in her mindscape. The whiteness was just so _sterile._

It was nice, but at the same time, the blankness of it all threw her a little.

No sounds, no smell, no colors.

Was the afterlife an eternity of this?

Suddenly, she turned her head sharply. She heard something… no. Rather, _felt_ it. Like… a cork being popped or a sink plunger being taken out. She felt lighter and all of a sudden, she was sent spinning in an eddy current, swirling around. Was this the next stage? Would she see her parents soon. Oh she hoped so.

She felt heavier and the invisible storm settled. In fact, she felt a _lot_ heavier- as if gravity had intensified threefold in the last twenty seconds.

The smells came.

Dew. Rust. Dirt. Leaves.

She was glad- she wouldn't have been able to last an eternity in complete sensory deprivation. But then, suddenly the white world turned pitch black. Completely black and she felt as if she was weighed down by stone. She also felt incredibly sore, groggy and tired. What the hell was going on? Couldn't the deities make up their minds? Or was Heaven having an off day?

She had an inexplicable urge to open her eyes when she knew that they were open. Still, she did so.

A burst of color invaded her senses. Watery pale blue, creamy yellow- the color of sunlight. Deep greens, emerald greens. Browns. She winced against the brightness and blinked once more, coming to her senses. Where was she? What the…

A voice croaked. Familiar, but also barely discernible.

"Hey… Brookie, you're okay..."

The memories came flooding back. All of it. Wendy. Wendy had really come. She wasn't dead- she was alive, by some miracle. And she surmised that the miracle came in the name, shape and form of a freckled dunderhead called Wendy. Leah smiled truly and blinked again, trying to focus on the shape of her friend. She had saved her!

But then, as her eyes adjusted, the smile vanished without a trace.

Wendy was smiling weakly, a softness in her eyes. Pride burned in them, as did happiness.

Leah scratched it all off. _This_ was Hell at its worst. She'd deal with eternal flames any day over this. Heaven? She was stupid to even consider the fact that she _might_ end up there. Gods… Gods were never that kind. They had given her a carrot, lulling her into security, only to take it away and cut her down once more.

Blood caked the side of her head and dripped down her chin. Her hand weakly held onto her side and Leah could see a glint of silver beneath her fingers. Her heart faltered. Wendy… had been stabbed. The bastard's knife, she surmised. Wendy had saved her… but at what cost? She didn't deserve _this_. Her life wasn't worth hers!

Wendy simply continued smiling, too weak to say much else, but she tried.

"Brookie… I came… for you… Is okay though… He's dead… Y'know, I was… raped when I was…"

She coughed bloodily, rasping in her throat and tears picked at Leah's eyes as she tightly clenched her friend's hand. With great effort, the ginger-haired girl continued.

"Thirteen… I know… what it feels like. And I couldn't… let it happen… to you… too."

She huffed in a breath noisily.

"I'll be… okay… Just… take care of yourself… Brookie… I… love you… and I'll… watch over you… from… above..."

She coughed more weakly this time and fell silent, unable to say much more. Only the wan, semi-present smile remained on her face. Leah was silent, so overcome with emotions that hadn't made an appearance in so long. Tears silently fell, showing her inarticulate sorrow. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't just say _thank you_ , not when it came at the cost of Wendy's own life… but… there was one thing.

"Leah. Wendy… My name is Leah Addington… I..."

She broke off with a choked sob. The other girl's smile widened and she rasped out.

"L..Leah. That's… a nice… name too… Leah..."

With that, she fell silent, closing her eyes. Leah stomped on the urge to shake her friend and beg her to live, when she knew that it was futile. Every moment left on this earth for her was pointless, causeless agony and pain. No one must go that way. It was purely selfishness on her part.

She cried. Great, heaving sobs wracked her exhausted frame and she completely ignored the dead body of the man who had nearly killed her yesterday. She didn't feel hate towards him, nor fear. He didn't deserve a single thought from her mind, but Wendy did.

Leah's tears only intensified when she saw that Wendy, despite having gotten stabbed and clubbed, had managed to crawl over and act as a blanket, saving her from hypothermia. She clutched the dying girl's body tightly and buried her face in her cooling shoulder, sobbing with grief of such intensity she never fathomed she had.

Wendy simply watched from above, a bittersweet expression on her face, silently vowing that she'd look over her as she had promised. Then, she looked up towards the Heavens, from which she felt an air current, almost like a vaccuum.

"Be safe, Leah."

With that, she soared up to where she now belonged, leaving the girl below to continue crying, holding the now stiff, cold body.

Leah didn't even notice the sun go down or the moon come up.

It was only when she felt the piercing chill once more she decided to dry her tears and stand up on shaky knees, and begin the long trek back to the circus at which she knew she'll never be safe again. Too many ghosts haunted that place for her liking now.

She left, leaving behind two bodies that would never again be found and a blood trail that eventually got melded with and covered over by the snow.

* * *

 _I actually had a bit of fun with this. The changing perspectives took some doing, but it was fun. Eh. Ooh, and I brought Beyond baaaaaack. I love his character far too much to just let him be a one time thing. And L. A teeny tiny bit of L too. Love me? Hate me for giving too little of the detective?_

 _Anyways, hope you liked it. Leave me your comments and suggestions. I pinky promise that I will take it aaaall into consideration. And no. Point blank, I shall tell you now. No LightxLeah. Hell no. Light is a self-righteous, narcissistic bastard. Villain-wise, he's amazing. In all other aspects, he's the Oxford dictionary definition of 'prick'._

 _Heeeeee._

 _Love as always,_

 _Ren x_


	7. CH2: (Part Six)-The Guardian Angel

**CHAPTER 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.5: The Guardian Angel.**

One year, six months and twelves days, two thousand dollars and a bag full of clothes stolen off washing lines later, this was where the girl ended up. The beautiful, bloodied city of Detroit, where gunshots rang in the air for longer than the church bells.

Brooke Smith, as you might have guessed, was gone.

Her name was now Taffety. In short, _'Taffy.'_ No surname. As strange as it may sound, in a district populated by street hookers who bore names likening themselves to all varieties of candy, blatantly advertising the 'sweetness' of their nether regions, the name 'Taffy' was quite the norm. Hell, the circle she was squatting with, she'd hear the word 'Caramel' from at least a dozen people.

Leah leaned back against a wall, hood of her overlarge gym sweatshirt hanging over her eyes. Time had weathered her and she was glad for it. She no longer relied on anyone- she was sixteen. The city had brushed off its dirt, grime, crassness and penchant for violence on her- she knew how to take care of herself now.

It had taken blood, sweat and the death of her best friend for her to learn, but she finally did.

Elbow propped on a bent knee, she lazily dug her spoon through the can of beans that was her lunch, in search of the elusive pieces of smoked bacon. There wasn't much to start with- the can _was_ from the dumpster. No one wasted money on groceries if they could help it. Start with the trash, then the rather questionable fruit trees on the outskirts, and if need be, rob a store.

Breaking in and holding people at gunpoint for a few packs of chips and a six pack was so habitual now that it was easier than brushing her teeth.

The beans were gone, the can empty. She glowered. She was still _hungry_. She looked at the empty can of peaches of the same origin with equal disdain, but then gave up with a sigh. There was no point getting mad at pointless things.

She knew what she needed to do.

She needed to work up a sweat.

Walking down the sewer pathway, she hopped off a beam, down to the lowest level. Yes, Leah was officially a sewer rat, but then again, it was an acceptable way of life. The place was actually more populated than one would imagine- hookers ranging from the quiet 'Cinnamon' to the illustrious, bedazzled transsexual who loudly proclaimed himself to be ' _Backdoor Barney!'_ \- lived here during the day. But given that they worked the night shift for obvious reasons, she was mostly alone- save for a few people huddled in a corner huffing some lines.

They never looked her in the eye. Ever.

She supposed she scared them a mite, but still she didn't regret it. She'd rather _be_ scary than be _scared_. She'd been a coward long enough. Now, _she_ was in charge. The cocaine-huffers knew their place and she was thoroughly satisfied.

Alone, she pulled the hoodie over her head, revealing a simple white tank top.

"Alright. C'mon."

Motivating herself, she jumped as high as she could, her 5'4'' frame allowing her to grasp a welded pipe in the ceiling of the tunnel that she deemed study and rust-free enough. Hoisting herself up, she began her daily chin ups. A hundred. She went through a hundred.

Fitness was key to survival in the big city. If you didn't run fast enough, you'd get shot down or arrested. If you couldn't jump far enough, you'd plummet off the rooftop, stealing someone's laundry. If you couldn't scale high enough, a police dog was more than likely to rip your limb off whether you had actually committed an offense or not. Such was the law of the land here.

She had learned the hard way, bearing more scars than she'd care to admit.

The largest one was a long white gash running from her ankle right up her back, to the base of her neck. She'd fallen and a ten inch nail protruding from the fence behind her had sliced her open as she did. It hurt like a bitch, but luckily, some of the junkies knew a thing or two about patching up wounds.

Eventually, she'd realized that she had come to a war zone.

Instead of looking for an out as she earlier might have done, she had decided to stay, to fight back. She'd lost Wendy because she was too weak. No more. Over the year, she had built up her endurance. Baby steps at first- jogging and then running. Then push-ups. Then chin ups. Then scaling. You name it, she'd done it. It was the only way of survival.

Sweat ran down her face and her brow knotted in determination.

Her arms were screaming with fatigue- she never went a day without a full workout. But she kept going, puffing out a breath every time she lowered herself back down. Gritting her teeth, she grunted as she finished the final rep.

"Argh."

Dropping down, she sat, taking her knees to her chest, breathing hard. She was getting better, stronger by the day. Which was good. This place… was a cesspool of violence. What had happened to Wendy was a daily occurrence here. No one batted an eyelid at the sight of a trail of blood, or someone's gut-wrenching scream. It had taken her a while to get used to it all, but now, she was just like the rest of them.

Indifferent, uncaring, unafraid.

Everyone here was resigned to the possibility of their own murder. She wasn't _quite_ that far along her journey to not giving a flying fuck about anything, but she was getting there.

Though thoroughly desensitized, she was not immune to her own logic. It was impossible to think that such… post-apocalyptic… places even existed. The murders were senseless. The rivers ran red. The screams echoed off buildings at all times of the day. It just… was illogical. Civilization just couldn't be _that_ depraved. But, here it was. People's Ids ran rampant, no Superego to keep it in check. Their base instincts simply took control. The took what they wanted, when they wanted and without remorse.

Leah pushed her forehead onto her knees, partly to draw in deeper breaths, partly to think.

There were women and children roaming the streets. Innocents simply trying their hardest to get by, dealing the best they could with the hand of cards life dealt them. Should they look over their shoulders every time they went to the market to buy some apples or a loaf of bread? It wasn't _right_.

Her moral compass wasn't admittedly the strongest- she'd done some God-awful things to live. She'd turned a blind eye to so many atrocious things, but it couldn't be denied. She had a sense of karmic justice. And that sense told her that none of this was permissible.

 _But what was she to do?_ In reality, against the big, bad world, she was as powerful as a baby seal next to a killer whale.

Huffing, she leapt to her feet, stretching out her legs. They were a bit sore with the run, but nevertheless, she'd go on. Later, though. She was hungry again.

She flexed her fingers and the cracking of her stiff knuckles echoed within the depths of the sewage tunnels. Her footsteps soon harmonized with the sound. She walked back in the direction she came from, hoping that someone's trash had been dumped in the nearby dumpster.

She mentally crossed her fingers that someone last night had decided to eat corned beef. A staple that was ever-popular, seeing as one tin can be stored without fault for _years_. People always stocked them for emergencies.

There was also another bonus. Because of the odd, rectangular shape of the can, there was _always_ a hefty amount left at the bottom- too stubborn to leave. Those pickings were what she hoped for. Unfortunately though, it was also what the _rest_ of them looked for as well. Corned beef tins- people scraped and licked them clean and bone-dry.

No matter.

She shrugged on her sweater again, letting the hood fall over her face.

She wasn't afraid to fight for it.

And she had the busted knuckles and purpling scabs to prove it too.

* * *

"Ebi se! Piss off!"

The girl swore in Bulgarian, trying to ward off the two men approaching her. She had little on her to give- not that she'd give them anything anyway. They'd have to pry the ten dollars and few Twinkie rolls from her cold, dead, white fingers.

They held up their hands placatingly, a gesture that didn't quite work, given that they clutched a couple of fancy firearms in their palms. Magnums too.

"Lady, just give us what you have and you can walk out of this alive."

She simply spat on the ground at their feet.

"Never, _kopele!"_

She had seen pregnant mothers starving on the streets, stomachs voluminous though their ribs stuck out from their chests, starved. She'd kept the food from them… only to give it to these faggots? No. No way in Hell. She was depraved- she kept food from those who needed it for her own survival. It was everyone for themselves here.

But she hadn't quite sunk that low, to just _hand_ over the food to a couple of thugs with guns, most likely with balls smaller than marbles, when it could have gone to the truly destitute. Besides, it wasn't as if they _needed_ her food- they could go _months_ without it, judging by the amount of fat they had stored away for the winter. These guys were fucking pigs.

The two men lost all pretense of reconciliation and advanced menacingly.

"Woman, give us what you have, or you'll die painfully. We'll cut off your toes one by one."

Despite her razor sharp tongue, she hadn't really learned how to defend herself. Words were her first and only line of defense. But, it didn't stop her from trying. She got herself into a sloppy martial arts stance that she had picked up on HBO in what seemed like a lifetime ago, when she had hopes, dreams and a future. She'd suffered too much to get where she was already- she'd rather die fighting.

"Bring it."

The men were slightly amused. They recognized her bravery, but it did nothing to their decision to kill her. Killing was second nature to them. Certainly no sleep was missed over the blood they spilled.

Great hulking brutes, they closed in on a girl who was a fraction of their body mass.

She didn't stand a chance.

Courage only got one so far.

* * *

Leah stared at the moldy bricks in disinterest, listening to the sounds of the great beyond. Meaning on the surface level- the blood stained world above her head. Currently, her ears had radioed in on a sitcom-like dialog that would have been comical on any TV network. Tragic too, maybe.

The girl _clearly_ had more guts than brains. It was also pretty evident that she didn't know how to fight in the slightest- she could hear the bluff in the woman's voice miles off.

The sound system in the sewers was better than any surround sound, thanks to the metal pipes that ran through. Voices, footsteps on the surface reverberated through the manhole covers, water pipes, waste pipes, making their way into the tunnels they inhabited. Often, it was a curse- the average gunshot resounded ten times louder, cutting off even the little sleep she needed to function.

But, on occasion, entertainment like this came along and she was thankful for the distraction.

She'd listened in on various similar stick-ups and did absolutely nothing to prevent the usual penultimate resounding ' _bang'_ at the end that signaled that a .22 was lodged in yet another victim's cranium. While they _pleaded_ for their lives, she picked at her teeth in hopes of dislodging a piece of celery or cartilage from meat to idly chew on.

Pleading disappointed her. They should know better. Dumb people live only to die another day. It was a waste of her time and effort to save them from their ultimate fates.

This woman too, was incredibly stupid. No one in Detroit fucking carried _gold_ in their purse and no one in their right minds dropped into the neighborhood from Satan's anus for a social visit. Just fucking give them the shit and leave while you have the chance- _if you have the chance_. It was very simple.

Yet one thing drew Leah's attention and admiration.

"… _Never, kopele!"_

The voice, gaining a slightly metallic quality from all the bouncing around was emphatic in what it said. She had absolutely _no_ clue as to _what_ the woman said, but from the defiance and tone, she wagered that it was a very colorful variation of her native tongue.

The woman _didn't beg_. Not once did she back down, _plead._ She was almost certainly at gunpoint and she was swearing up a storm.

 _That in itself was rare_. Faced with death, the woman fought, despite knowing that the chances were that she'd end up in the river with the throat cut, or if she was lucky, a spot in the overpopulated morgue might just open up.

She intrigued Leah and also made her heartstrings tug. Wendy- her defiance reminded her of Wendy.

Leah heard threats made- no shocker there. She'd heard so, so many such lines over the years. _Imma rip yo face right off. Imma shoot you between the eyes. Bitch, you wanna die? Hand your fucking money over, nigga'!_ Some were a bit more creative- _I'm gonna shove a stake up your ass and through your throat and make you a buffet for the ravens in the Square._ She'd heard it all. From their threat to… cut her toes off?, she judged that they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Obviously, they've watched one too many kidnapping movies.

Footsteps echoed, slightly muffled by shoes.

Leah bit her lip, scowling and contemplating. Part of her wanted to just ignore the ruckus up above, quite like the stoners in the corner were successfully doing, conked out of their minds. Another day, another body… metaphorically, of course. This would be the _third_ body today that she'd come across.

The other bit of her wanted to intervene. She couldn't _quite_ put a finger on it.

It wasn't exactly humanity- she had lost that quite a while ago. She'd become a monster and she had readily come to terms with that. Pity… remorse… it was way over her head _now_. No. It was more like… a sense of… justice? This woman didn't _deserve_ to die today. She was braver than most and if life gave her a chance, she could be a survivor. Bravery is to be rewarded.

Justice. Yeah. That was it.

It wasn't the fool's kind of justice that she felt, where she believed that every bad man should be killed in the end for their misdeeds. The world turned people bad- people became bad because of their circumstances. Should they be punished for the way they turned out? Maybe. Maybe not.

She was no Superman or Wonder Woman, strolling the streets and scouring the skies, saving damsels in distress and kittens stuck in trees. In fact, she was sorely tempted to just lie down flat on the ground, make herself as comfortable on the stone floor as she possibly could and just go to sleep. Her brain was beginning to feel a little tired- it was her third night in a row without a wink of rest. She'd have to brave the nightmares tonight anyhow… why not start a bit early. Shit was less scary during the day.

But it was still niggling in her mind.

Leah blamed it all on her fatigue. She wasn't thinking straight. Standing up again, she broke out into a run and jumped onto the rails leading to the closest manhole cover to where the woman's voice was coming from. She was possibly going insane.

Well, yes. She knew how to _fight_. But still, her mix-and-match fighting skills didn't guarantee her safety while staying down in her comfy, cozy sewer pit _did. Why_ she was sticking her neck out for some girl she didn't know _at all_ , she couldn't fathom.

Leah blamed it all on the fatigue.

Reaching the top, with a seasoned hand, she deftly cast aside the metal cover that was in fact, far heavier than it looked.

Blinking against the sunlight (summer was a real bitch, casting blinding light even when it was supposed to be 'night'), she stealthily climbed out and was met with the view of two obese men's backs in all their sweaty glory. They were steadily advancing on a woman who was standing her ground, but minutely stepping back once in a while, betraying fear beneath the bravado.

Both behemoths were bald and wore shirts that had enough material to make one, if not two, spacious tents. Large damp patches adorned their backs and all in all, they looked like giant piles of melting marshmallow frosting.

The woman was small- shorter than Leah, who herself was not very tall. Strawberry blonde and brown-eyed, she had a slightly foreign air to her features, backed by her not-so-American words of scorn that was coming from her mouth at a speed that would make Eminem jealous.

The men wouldn't pose too much of a problem. They fought with brute strength, using their weight to their advantage. Fortunately, that made them slow- they'd have to make a run for it before they could turn and point their guns. Leah _would_ knock them out if she could, but the terrain wasn't too favorable. Firstly, she'd have to aim for their heads- she'd have to have a treasure map to find an internal organ worth hitting under all that flab. Secondly, to kick their heads, she was too short- they had a good half-a-foot on her. There was nothing to jump off of- no ledges, no low roofs.

Nothing to get her airborne.

That leaves one thing.

Jump off a high rise.

She'd have to take them by surprise, hopefully wind them with a kick to the nuts- only sure-fire way to stall them, given that their testicles were most certainly not bestowed but blubber-armor, and then grab the stupid woman and run like the Hunger Games had just started.

* * *

Keeping a nonchalant face was _hard work_.

She knew that she was royally and truly screwed. She stood absolutely no chance. Unless, of course, a sudden thunderclap- a saving grace- came to her rescue and fried these people to ashes. But, it was sunny as all hell- not a cloud in sight.

The woman backed up a smidgen while bellowing out a storm of curses that did absolutely nothing to ward off the men coming towards her. Crap.

Elaine prayed that somewhere in the middle of a desert, a shamen started a rain chance with his beads and feathers. Otherwise, there was no way she'd make it out of this alive. In the middle of Detroit, no one came to anyone's rescue- period. It was all for one, one for all. Besides, one more dead person meant more food to go around. Silver linings.

"Stay back."

She held her hands up in what she dearly hoped was an accurate karate stance. Apparently it wasn't. The men were not at all deterred. In fact, they seemed to be _laughing_ on the inside. So. _This_ was how she was going to die. Cornered, beaten, tortured and _laughed_ at. Somehow, the last one seemed to be the worst of the four. A humiliating death.

Not a dream funeral, that's for sure.

"You asked for it, _chica_."

If she wasn't facing an almost certain, very imminent death, she would have scowled. _Chica?_ Did she fucking _look_ like a _chica_ to him? As if. Fucking assholes. She just fervently wished she could rip them a new one. But… she couldn't and she knew that. She just wished she had liked The Expendables a bit more and Sex and the City a bit less. Batting eyelashes and hiking up her skirt a hit would buy her a drink at the bar, not quite save her here.

Another step back slightly. Maybe she could outsmart them? They didn't seem to bright. She _could_ , but given that it was a cul-de-sac, her options were pretty limited, she would say.

Something hit her shoulder. Small and hard- not enough to cause _pain_ , but it stung. She ignored it. She had more pressing issues at the moment.

But the second one, she _couldn't_ ignore. It hurt like a _bitch_. She discreetly looked around, momentarily forgetting the menacing goons, who were eyeing her as they approached, lumbering ever-slowly, tiny minds processing what her defense strategy was. A pebble? A _fucking pebble_! How the hell did that hurt so much? Then it clicked. It came from above.

One could have been brick dust a crow dislodged during take-off. But two? No. Two was a coincidence. Sherlock never believed in coincidence- and now, neither did she.

Shielding her eyes, she flicked her eyes up for a second.

She saw a shadow in a hoodie, the silhouette looking distinctly female. Wild, short hair bellowing in the gust that streamed over the rooftops, the figure raised a finger to her lips, telling her to keep her mouth shut. Elaine didn't need telling twice. She made a small 'thumbs-up' gesture with her hand at her hip to keep it out of the fat mens' sights, signaling that she understood.

Trying hard not to betray her sudden relief, she turned back towards the other men, the bravado on her face not quite so forced.

Her thunderclap had come in the form of a yet-unknown girl on the rooftops. Now that the odds were evened, maybe… just maybe, she'd get to keep her life. Of course, the _girl_ could probably be after whatever stuff she had as well and wanted to get rid of Crabbe and Goyle here to get it. But, she knew one thing for sure. If this was survival of the fittest, she'd rather the girl live. Of all the murderous people in this dank hell, she seemed the nicest.

Leah's mind instinctively calculated how far she'd have to jump and where to land so as to not break her tibia, fibula and femurs in one fell swoop. From nearly a seventy foot height she'd have to target her bullseye perfectly, else she'd die. Her target?

Trashcans were too hard, as was the cement, stone and tarmac of the road. There were no railing or anything of the sort for her to cling onto and break her fall. What did that leave her with?

Leah paced back a few meters, praying that she wasn't being entirely _too_ stupid. Her gut better be right. This girl better be worth it all. Feet slapping quietly against the bare concrete of the pigeon-shit laden rooftop, she took a running start… and jumped.

The fall was nothing but a blur of gray, brown and black. The wind whipped in her face and her eyes watered, begging for her to close them, but she didn't. For one, she had a few seconds to steer her body towards her target and the second, as soon as she landed, she'd have to take advantage of the element of surprise. She could hear whistling in her ears and then…

 _Thunk_.

With a low, sickening thud, she hit her mark perfectly. Thing 1 went down while Thing 2 just stood there gawping. Thing 1, she could feel, wasn't quite dead, but she had surmised that. It took a lot more than 118 pounds falling over seventy feet to kill a man that large. But, he was out for the count, gun cradled under his body.

Leah sprang into action.

Frozen in shock at the impromptu arrival of a girl from the Heavens, the man standing barely felt his pointed loaded gun being expertly wrestled from his not-so-slack grip. He didn't register the sharp kick to his shin to bring him down to his knee, but his body did, and fell accordingly. He however, _did_ feel the excruciating pain radiating up from his man pearls and his world came back to technicolor.

He realized that the woman was getting away, lead by a lithe ruffian of a girl.

Swearing colorfully, he was humiliated.

Here he was thrice their size, but all he could do was watch them run away while he sat on his knees, cupping his balls that would surely be black and blue tomorrow. Wincing, he snuck a peek. Scratch that. No need to wait until tomorrow after all.

He spat on the ground in self disgust.

Pathetic.

* * *

Leah ran like the wind, the girl she had saved from the lion's mouth in tow. She was stumbling every few steps, but kudos to her for keeping up with a veteran Runner in a place far, far worse than that ridiculous maze in the Maze Runner. Grievers had nothing on the people than ran this town.

Cutting through another alleyway, entering a relatively shielded street, she finally slowed to a jog, and after checking thoroughly to make sure that the coast was as clear as it could possibly get, stopped.

Letting go of her arm, Leah stepped back, surveying her intently. The rather clean _dress_ meant that she wasn't here long- two months at the most. She was pretty too- the blonde hair shined with the kind of luster that Leah's had lost a long, long, long, long time ago. But she wasn't the least bit jealous. Her tangled crow's nest of dark hair, dirty clothes and the wafting smell of baked beans wasn't going to put her on the top of The Most Likely to be Raped list.

But this girl. She was prime fresh meat. She was amongst the women here as filet mignon was amongst steaks.

Elaine scrutinized her savior, her guardian angel.

She wanted to thank her, but she waited, with the earlier realization she had. Maybe this one would kill her too, although the chances of that happening seemed to be lessening. The girl was dirty and scruffy, body virtually hidden beneath a jumper several times too big. Her face was still shadowed by the hood, but she could see the eyes. Dark, deep, disturbingly wide pupils that took in everything like a black hole. Elaine felt as if she was revealing every one of her secrets, even the one where she stole all the Christmas cookies and ate them, blaming it, letting her brother take the blame for it. She was two, then.

Messy hair, caked in grime. Her fists were bandaged in dirty linen and her feet bore worse-for-wear Converses- once white, now closer to black.

All in all, she certainly looked the part for serial-killer-knifer, but she could just tell that she wasn't that depraved. Maybe it was her adrenaline and cocktail of other hormones coursing her veins, but she felt a bit… safe. Completely crazy, but she felt what she felt. This place was getting to her.

The mystery girl was still stonily silent and the staring was beginning to make her skin prick. So, partly out of the urge to break the Antarctica-variety ice and partly to truly express her fervent gratitude, she ventured to speak, to thank her.

"You're one fucking _stupid_ bitch, y'know that?"

A gruff voice beat her to the punch. The girl had quit her unrelenting stare of death and had relaxed her posture, standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, one eyebrow cocked. Elaine supposed she was to be insulted, but the relief of the broken tension was coursing through her and she was too happy about that to care.

"If you don't know how to fight, give your shit up and run like hell. Else you die. This ain't fucking Disneyland."

The girl pulled down her hood and Elaine was marginally surprised at the age of her savior. She was… young. Fifteen or sixteen… or maybe a starved seventeen year old. Yet, her posture, fearlessness and rudeness didn't betray the fact. How a girl that age managed to live in the city without getting herself killed was a downright enigma.

"Thank you."

She figured now was a good time as any. The girl merely snorted.

"Whatever. I was just in a good mood."

Her voice became dangerously cold, but Elaine didn't- strangely enough- feel the least bit afraid. Being her, her mouth ran before her mind could catch up. It was an unspoken rule amongst the unholy community that one's name is taboo- names didn't matter. It was one for all, all for one. Not that Elaine knew that anyway, of course, but she should have.

"So, what's your name?"

Leah cocked her eyebrow again, the puzzle pieces in her brain falling into place. She had figured the girl in front of her out almost completely. Some parts of her history- unimportant details- were missing, but she had what she needed. Her question just solidified her musings. No one experienced ever asked such a question from anyone else. This girl was new here… maybe less than a month living in this Hell.

She still had no idea why she had saved the girl. She was… yes, in a way like Wendy… but also not like her.

She didn't wish to divulge her real name… or any name for that matter. Give strangers the finger, whoever you dub an acquaintance your alias. But… for some reason she had yet to discover, she had a childish urge to find out more about the stranger in front of her. She felt like a three year old at the beach, poking a washed-up jellyfish repeatedly with a stick.

"Taffety. Call me Taffy… You?"

Elaine bit her lip. Should she? Ah to hell with it. If the girl was going to kill her, she would have done so already.

"Elaine Mathers."

Leah mentally sighed. Good grief, she was a newbie _and_ she was dumb. How did she manage to make it this long without getting thrown to the pimps? She had more good looks than sense. Leah scoffed, with a tiny sarcastic smile.

"Where you from? You haven't been here very long. Why d'you come here of all places?"

The girl chewed her lip again- an easy tell.

"I… uh… My parents died in… a shooting… I have no money and no family. Detroit is the cheapest place to live in so I came here."

So, she had enough sense to lie. That was good- she wasn't totally brain dead. But she _really_ needed to work on her lying skills. All in all, Leah had already made up her mind- Elaine was coming with her. She really hadn't worn her soul down to such bluntness that she could leave a woman like that out on the street for the wolves. Besides, if she didn't become a whore, it'd be nice to have a person who was not a meth-addict in the sewers. Two people can carry more groceries from a heist too.

"Hn. Okay. C'mon then."

The other girl blinked in surprise.

"Wh..where we going?"

She nibbled the lip again. She hoped desperately that the girl was taking her to some sort of safe shelter… at least, as safe as it could possibly be here. But she had been far too nervous to ask. Sleeping under the bridge with nothing but a pointy twig to ward off rats was not sitting well with her. Also… the rapists.

She shuddered.

Leah fixed her eyes forwards and began to slowly walk towards the entrance of the cul-de-sac, mapping out the closest way back.

"Would you rather stay here and die alone?"

Elaine double took and internally slapped herself for being stupid. Again.

"I… er… no. Thank you."

 _Hn,_ came the response.

Leah was pensive. So, she was harboring yet another fugitive- this one had a good five years on her, she believed. The part where her parents were dead, she read the truth. During a shooting? Yes, and no. She didn't say 'murdered', as most grieving people naturally say. It didn't prove much, but it inclined her to think that the parents were criminally inclined- the police being the ones who shot them

Detroit? Cheap to live in, yes. But there were other places just about as cheap- in the middle of nowhere. Less guns, more farm animals. Why would a person pick _here_ out of all places? Simple. Lack of law enforcement. Shit hit the fan here- no one cared. Was there a more perfect place for a criminal to hide? Also, she was most likely an illegal immigrant too- she lapse into her native language occasionally didn't make her a seasoned American. After all, how difficult must it be for a criminal to get a visa?

Immigration wouldn't step a toe _here_ to look for Bin Laden, let alone her.

She gave the word 'money' some priority in her accenting- again depicting that her parents might have committed some sort of financial scandal that she was somehow roped into.

All in all, not a threat. There were _some_ holes- exactly where she was from- her accent was one she had never heard of before. But still, Leah had enough.

Elaine sighed in relief. Thank God. She managed to lie through her teeth. She'd been perfecting it for ages- to her ears, the delivery was her best yet. At least the girl didn't know that she was hunted because her parents had basically robbed the government- which now believed that she was a co-conspirator. Like hell. She didn't know anything- she didn't know. It had ripped her world apart when she found out and she was only starting to piece it back.

"You'll do okay. You'll have to brush yourself up, but you're new. You'll learn. Also, dress less Malibu-Barbie, more hobo-chic. Oh. And _try_ to lie a bit better. Just sayin'"

The rough voice jarred her from her thoughts she she was suddenly nervous.

"What do you mean?"

Leah smirked, smile hidden.

"Eh. Your expressions and the way you dress tell me everything I need to know. I can guarantee you that Immigration won't look for you here. Nor will the people back in your country. I'm no snitch. Besides, living here is worse than fucking Alcatraz."

Elaine was stunned. How did she know?

This time though, her mouth finally got the message. She sagely decided to shut up, leaving the other girl to blankly walk on ahead, her silhouette ringed with the orange glow of the finally setting summer sun.

Leah contemplated.

She wondered if this was what Wendy felt as she saved her. It felt weird… but a good weird, she supposed. She just couldn't quite put a finger on it.

Helping the little guy.

Now there's a thought.

Hm.

* * *

 _OOOOOOKAY._

 _Another chapter done. Another few days gone by. What'll happen next? Cue ghostly whisper. NOOOOBODY KNOWWWS. Even I don't. Shocked?_

 _Again, please be gooood little readers and review okay? I need ideas, I need inspiration. Creative juices must flow. Hn. I never liked that phrase. Creative juices. Sounds like brain juice. Sticky, messy, all-round gross. No?_

 _Thought of the day._

 _Love,_

 _Ren._


	8. CH2: (Part Seven)-The Foxes Hunt Hounds

**CHAPTER 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.6: Foxes Hunt the Hounds.**

 _Plink. Plink. Plink._

The sound was gratingly annoying, but the young man took no notice. It was habitual. He continued dropping sugar cubes one by one into his cup of tea that had for the past hour, been Earl Grey syrup. The cubes were stacking up, but he didn't even seem to be paying any attention whatsoever to that minute detail. Indeed, it was a question if he was any longer tethered to the mortal realm.

His vacant eyes were wide open- saw… yet not saw. His brain was processing ideas and eliminating them simultaneously in the time it took for an average human to contemplate the best way to open a pack of chips without its contents being spilled all over the floor.

 _Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink._

Bared toes wiggled as he sat hunched in his swivel chair in front of a computer displaying the case files that he had seen over and over again. Every word, every full stop, every comma was imprinted inside his head… as well as the image of every bloodstained, maimed corpse that came with said files.

 _Plink._

The last sugar cube went into the cup that was piled precariously high with a noxious amount of sugar. It was past drinking- even for him. His fingers instinctively went for the next, but they clawed nothing but air. Hat slight irregularity was what drew him from his trance.

L blinked, eyes coming back into focus. He frowned slightly and a sugar dusted, sticky thumb found its way into his mouth.

His rather bored looking wide-eyed stare and his rather lackadaisical demeanor betrayed nothing to both the casual observer and the keen observer alike, but he was incredibly frustrated. There was nothing that kept him up at night- metaphorically of course, he never slept- like an unsolved case. No… an _unsolvable_ case. The cherry _on top of the cherry_ on the icing of the cake was that he _knew_ exactly who it was… No one else could do anything of the sort.

He _just couldn't prove it_.

No. _Not yet_ , he told himself. He will prove it. He must.

Beyond Birthday. His arguably darker half.

L cringed at the thought. That sounded as if they were destined for holy matrimony or something- two halves of a whole. He immediately chastised himself for thinking of such utter crap. He was slowly beginning to lose lucidity, he noted. Lack of sleep was bringing out the weirdness in him and he was plenty weird already.

He still couldn't completely blame his brain for such a dumb idea.

Beyond had his behavior, his appearance, his tics all down to the letter. He had made himself his _evil twin_. There. Now _that's_ a better way of saying it.

L idly traced the closed manila folders next to his keyboard. Beyond's file from Wammy's and all the case files containing gory pictures he really didn't wish to see again. He'd stomach it once for the sake of necessity, but no more than truly needed. He knew that he himself was depraved- he was a monster. He lied, he beguiled and he chose cases for the interest, shock factor and the difficulty of it as a puzzle. He never chose anything out of empathy and more often than not, gruesome cases went into his 'Unwanted' pile. In fact, when A decided to kill himself, L's sympathy was feigned, though he may or may not have convinced himself otherwise.

But this… it wasn't a level that even _he…_ a certifiable sociopath, would ever fall to.

Beyond had fallen off the deep end and L supposed quite generously that _maybe_ he himself had a small part to do with it. If he had been a better mentor… maybe? No, he couldn't quite picture that. He didn't need a carbon copy- one could only keep up the act so long. This was all Beyond- he couldn't handle the pressure, he didn't understand the true purpose of Wammy's house.

People weren't supposed to _become him_. They were supposed to be _like_ him, but themselves in the end.

The detective slightly shook his head, wiping the slate clean. If he was being emotional or too contemplative of the frailty of human life, he'll never catch BB. Though the little human part in his own twisted, monstrous soul was telling him to _feel_ \- feel pity to be exact, he didn't listen to it. Empathy got one nowhere. Logic, cold hard facts.

Facts told no lies. People did. Everybody lies- that, ironically, was the truth.

L, roused from his slightly… odd moment, searched around for his Holy Grail. The fork. Where did he put that fork?

He felt admittedly tired out of his mind- he had used up far too many calories sitting in one place for the past five or so hours. His head spun and his vision grayed. He needed cake, macarons, macaroons, candy, ice cream- _anything._ Or… all of it.

Sighing slightly, giving up on his quest for the elusive fork, he stabbed down on the intercom button. A hiss of static later, a voice answered.

"Connor? What do you need?"

Hearing Watari's voice settled L's rather disturbed state of mind. He supposed that he _was_ human after all. He couldn't see the logic in it, but minds were not exactly the most logical things. Everyone had a little madness in them- in essence, if one went by the laws of what made sense, no- one _would_ make any sense. If that made any sense at all.

God, he needed that sugar.

He mentally slapped himself again. God. Another one of mankind's insane creations. Get it together, L.

"Mmmm. Yes. Can I please have something to eat? Oh and please bring a fork."

After he heard the affirmation, L cut the line. It might have been rather brusque, but such was the way of the world's greatest detective- more so when he was irritated with himself for not living up to his name and finding a man he should know all too well. Watari took no offense in the slightest. He knew that the man now had the same quirks he did as when he was a young boy at his orphanage. If not more.

Social etiquette was not L's strong point.

That much was well established and certain excuses had to be made.

The older man stood from his seat in the other room of their two room suite. Watari knew how tenacious the young detective could be and he also knew that what the man asked for, he really truly needed. Over the years, Watari had become quite the baker.

He settled on baking a strawberry fudge cake and a batch of beignets as well- the cake would take some time. The pastry would hold the detective off until the cake was iced and ready for consumption.

Of course, Watari knew that he could pop over to a bakery and pick something up, but there was something appealing about baking for the boy. Catering to his every whim was a task that he had willingly undertaken- an agreement reached upon by the two of the wordlessly. He couldn't quite remember exactly _when_ it was decided that he would play butler- all he knew was that he didn't regret it in the least.

Watari knew perfectly well that L was one of a kind. There was absolutely no one else who could do what he did the way he did it. Solving crimes with such precision. He was just glad that he could help the world in his little, indirect way.

The older man switched to the security feed that connected to L's room for a second. It was a precaution that L had taken- each of them being allowed to see each other at will. In case of intrusion, at least one of them could flee.

Seeing the almost twenty-year-old hunched at his table like a peculiar gargoyle of sorts, Watari felt a sense of pride as well as a twinge of sadness.

L was a detective of such great importance in the world- he was a keystone amongst the police forces of many a nation. It was indeed a great honor. But… it came with a price. Watari, gazing upon the young man, still saw the little boy he had stumbled upon a wintery night all those years ago. Instead of the world's greatest detective, he saw a young man he saw as his son. He couldn't help but hope that there was even the slightest chance that he could lead a normal life as well.

It begs the question. Was a life lived in front of a computer screen, hiding in the shadows, a life well lived? Of course, L saved so many lives, brought so many families closure and stopped scandals and tragedies that could have changed the course of history. But… was it really all worth it?

Watari didn't have to look very far to see the toll of such a burden on a soul. In fact, they were dealing with such a man currently. Beyond… another boy he had taken in. He had seen first hand how the boy had withered and had prayed for the best, being able to do nothing more. It had cut him deeply when A committed suicide and now, seeing just how far the BB had fallen… It grieved him more than he cared to admit.

He sighed sadly and immersed himself in mixing the doughnut batter, trying to pacify his aching conscience and his niggling parental concern. He'd simply have to wait and see. The Universe had the answers… alas, he did not. Only time would reveal the solution to all his concerns.

L.

Was he throwing his life away? Was being this detective truly worth the risks?

It was a question that the old man, in all his years of fatherly wisdom, had no ready answer to.

* * *

This was definitely not her cup of tea.

The sheer _ludicrousness_ of the entire situation was hilariously laughable, but at that moment, Leah had never felt more like punching someone's lights out. More specifically Elaine's. She was the one- who in all her maternal gusto, being the older one- had put her in this predicament.

Not really concentrating on the droning ramble of some side-whiskered geezer in the front of the room, she kept her head down, eyes shut.

School. She was in fucking _school_.

Fingers clawed irately at the underside of the desk, so that she wouldn't lose control and end up beating the snot out of some fucking sod a good couple of years younger than her. Nothing personal- Leah was just pissed off as pissed off could be. Aside from the obvious- _she was in school,_ she had a myriad of reasons.

One, she was now in the system. Fake name, of course- Elaine wasn't _that_ brain-dead. The very fact that some little part of her life- her education was under the scrutiny of the establishment that was hunting her down- the government- was like an itch in the dermis of her skin. One you simply couldn't get rid of by scratching. The niggling fear of some bureaucratic fat-bottomed arse finding her photo in the databases was looming.

So, yes. Leah was being utterly paranoid- the chances of someone looking for her in a hellhole like Detroit, much less in the school database, were slim to none. But then again. Her good luck hadn't kept her alive through all the shit she'd waded through. Her paranoia had.

On to Number Two.

Not _only_ was she in school, but apparently, she hadn't qualified to be in the graduating class with people roughly her own _age_. No. She was in here with some wiener tots a good three years younger than her, learning the fucking Pythagoras theorem.

The old coot at the front was doing absolutely nothing but rambling on mostly to himself like some ding bat with its brain fried in a radioactive blast. If she wasn't so mortally irritated, Leah _might_ have found that quintessentially funny. His little tufts of hair were just _so wrong_. The eyes were deep set and so tiny that they were just glimmers in the depths of his skull. A loud, checkered, moth eaten blazer set off his attributes beautifully, the limoncello-green an eyesore against the orange checks.

She swore that her teeth were little more than stumps with all the grinding. Her fingernails were quite bloody and gross-looking- even by her meager standards. She had quite literally clawed the table in self-restraint for the past agonizing few days.

Mathematics was infuriatingly illogical. The 'professor' was just about as thick as he was odd. Together, it was a lethal combination and Leah was slowly driven to the edge of madness.

The only thing that kept her from going over the precipice were the cage fights she partook in- cage fights that Elaine had no clue she was getting in to. It brought them extra income that would be quite useful in the _real_ world, _if_ they could escape. Also, it provided an arguably less-than-healthy outlet for her frustrations. Win-win, right? Many a night, her nanny had patched her up, thinking it was simply the wear ad tear of daily life on the streets. Leah's back currently was a patchy black and blue, but to her, it was all worth it.

" _Miss Carson. What is X?"_

Carson. _Carson_.

Shit.

 _She_ was Carson. Millie Carson.

Leah's mind snapped to attention, mentally chastising herself for getting caught off guard there. Visibly, however, she seemed like the typical teen. Unenthusiastic, perpetually bored, on a medley of drugs and with enough bad attitude to put the Chinese Triads to shame. Not really a difficult persona to cultivate- she was more than halfway there already. All minus the drugs, although truth be told, it wasn't as far off as she'd liked to have hoped.

Desperation and insanity were like the plague, rotting people from the inside out.

With half-lidded, lazy eyes that adequately expressed her love of numbers and the human construct of mathematics, she glanced up to meet her teacher's piggy little gaze. Oh how that man annoyed her.

She quickly scanned the board.

A triangle, another triangle and an X. The picture was just logical- she knew the answer. The closest she could fathom to the scenario illustrated on the chipped board was if a plank was to be used as a slide to get from the roof of a building to the ground. How long would it have to be? _That_ was the hypotenuse. But still, X's and Y's simply made no sense. It was artifice at its best and she despised it. It was simply _knowledge_. Knowledge to just… _know_. Numbers, letters… unneeded.

She knew. She knew the answers to everything. She just couldn't translate the answers into bloody _numbers_.

Leah stared down at her nails, picking at them, utterly disinterested. Of course, she knew the answer to that particular question- she wasn't dumb, not in the slightest. But, she decided to give the wrong answer, just to screw with the man for a while. She was playing the unteachable truant.

"Twenty? I dunno. Go figure."

The man stifled a sigh.

He expected more maturity from them… especially _her_. Seeing her sitting there, leg propped up on a plastic seat, arm bent over it, simply emanating hostility and smug arrogance- he fervently _wished_ that he could teach her a lesson well worth learning. But still, there was something about her that secretly _scared_ him a bit. He just couldn't quite put a finger on it.

He really couldn't understand what was intimidating about a rude teen picking at her nails. But that didn't exactly change the way he felt.

Stodgers licked his lips, sorely tempted to go on a rant about paying attention and the virtues of respect, honor and kindness. But he stopped himself. Corporal punishment- despite the greater atrocities in the city- was illegal, so caning anyone was out of question. And the last time her tried to reach them with words, he had effectively gotten his tie cut and the seat of his bottom pierced by a hundred pins propped into his chair.

Instead, he just decided to give up on her for today.

"Not quite, Millie. Robby? Can you tell me what X is?"

Robby was a quiet soul- he'd simply sit down, write in his tattered notebook, absorb what he was taught and would walk out peacefully. He was the Gandhi amongst the people living the thug life. A quiet voice rang out, barely audible in the mish-mash of cell phone pings and muffled music coming from the back of the class. Stodgers strained to hear, but he knew that it was the right answer. Amongst the depraved children of the future he had the sheer misfortune to teach, Robby was the best one. The smartest too.

He offered the boy a small smile and went back to his board.

The bunch of them were all sinners. But still. On Sunday, he just might pray for them. Only Jesus could help them now.

* * *

"Detective Misora."

The pale, black haired woman of distinctly Japanese descent snapped her head away from the grotesque but somehow strangely… artistic (for the lack of a better word) scene in front of her. Setting down a marker next to yet _another_ straw doll, she rose and strode over to her subordinate.

"Wilkins? Did you find something?"

The man was a hulking giant, towering over her like a big, blond Shrek. At this very moment, he even had the coloring down- his face was rapidly turning from pale to puce to green. Detective Naomi Misora, Detective, Homicide, LAPD, took a tentative step back from the man who looked as if he was about to let loose last week's dinner. However, the gusher never came.

He somehow recalled his police training and composed himself and his nausea enough to point towards what looked like a bowl of old porridge by a bookshelf. Wilkins didn't say anything- he didn't trust himself to. But then again, Naomi needed no explanation of what the murky, soupy substance was. She had seen brains outside skulls plenty of times over the years- exposure that the rookie hadn't had.

She'd seen pancaked brains, splattered brains, brains painted over walls, brains on gurneys. Admittedly, it was her first time seeing _brain soup_ , but then again, there was a first time for everything. It looked disgusting and her stomach roiled at the putrid stench- obviously weeks old- but she kept a passive face. If she fell, so did everyone else on her team- it was as simple as that.

Snapping a picture of the bowl, she placed a marker. Number 77.

That was _a lot_ of potential evidence, but she knew that the guy they were after- he was not your garden-variety basket-case. This one knew how to murder, and murder _well_. He ( _or she,_ Naomi reminded herself) was incredibly intelligent- that much was evident when L decided to get himself involved- and he was unfortunately, about as much insane.

She had chased the killer over the West Coast, but so far, she'd had no luck at all.

He'd simply taken the mickey out of her.

He'd decreased his interval between kills and made each one more and more violent.

She surveyed the scene.

In truth, she didn't know exactly how much _more_ violent he could get. And here she was, thinking that she had seen it all.

Aside from the Brain-meal, the woman was unidentifiable as of yet. No fingers. No toes. No eyes. No jaw. No nothing. She was quite literally in pieces, butchered at the limbs, all major muscles fileted off with great dexterity. Seven straw dolls at this scene. It didn't make sense to her- none of it did. Hopefully, _hopefully_ , it did to the elusive hermit detective who was also on the case- her superior.

She quickly turned to the medic and coroner on scene who looked slightly ashen themselves, despite years upon years of experience. This sick freak was truly a monster.

"Anderson, Rylie. I have to go report this to L and send the shots. You can finish up here. Send me the reports at HQ."

The two of them nodded and Naomi picked up her camera and left the putrid stench of the apartment without a second look back, feeling utterly relieved at _leaving_. That place was making her skin crawl.

With quick steps, she walked to the entrance of the building to her cruiser. Evidence… there was so much, let so little. As with almost every scene, there was blood- a lot of blood. There was gore, there were dolls. But what they _didn't_ get were fingerprints. Bodily fluids. Epithelials. Touch DNA. The fact that someone murdered another human being with such macabre violence and left absolutely _no_ trace beggared belief. In fact, right now, her mind was loop-de-looping. What if he _wasn't_ human.

Naomi thudded the steering wheel with the heel of her palms.

"Get it together, Naomi. You can do this..."

She muttered to herself, trying to get rid of the increasing feeling of inadequacy she was beginning to feel. Resting her forehead against the wheel, she fumbled around and dug out her cell phone.

"1...9...7...0...6...4..*"

No one had ever seen L. No one had ever heard L's voice. The only form of contact she ever got was a distorted voice following a Cloister Black 'L' on a computer screen, or the same voice on the other end of the cell phone connection. It irked many a detective, but she was one of the rare few who didn't resent the shadowed detective for it. A man like that… must have enemies. A lot of them.

She cut the call, pressing the red button. Now she just had to sit and wait. Watari would call back in a bit.

Leaning back, she shut her eyes and exhaled deeply, clearing her mind of her insecurities. She couldn't fall apart. If she did, L would deem her incompetent, as would the higher-ups. Even worse, she would judge herself as a loser too.

 _Tap. Tap._

Naomi started and opened her eyes frantically. Someone was tapping the window.

She glanced around, alert and immediately relaxed. It was just Raye.

Her boyfriend… or 'just friend' as she told other people (in-office relationships were a big no-no), was looking at her with concern, the blue eyes probing. He didn't say anything- but then again, he didn't need to. He knew just as well as she did about what went on in her head.

Naomi smiled wanly and mouthed for him to get in. With a nod and a small smile, he strode around to the other side and got into the passenger seat.

"Mi. It's alright. We'll catch this guy, I know we will. We have you… and L, after all."

She remained silent and Raye knew that it was best to leave her to her thoughts. She didn't need babying- he knew that. But still… it was his job to worry, to make her feel safe, to give her hope.

"Let's go home, Mi. You need your rest."

After an immeasurable moment, she slowly nodded, starting her engine.

"Okay."

* * *

Irony was a mysterious thing and was the Universe's way of saying 'fuck you.' Because the man giving L and Company so much grief was in reality, less than three hundred yards away, perched like an owl in a tree, fingers daintily curled around a pair of binoculars.

Beyond's smile was luminous in the darkness- the only discernible feature in the pitch blackness of the night.

How very… curious.

So _that_ was the woman who was so intent on catching him. L's newest pawn. Her name… Naomi Misora. Interesting… very interesting.

She had none of the aesthetic appeal of his other victims- he had no particular _urge_ as such to kill her. But she was quite fascinating. Beautiful? Yes. Intelligent? Considering the worldwide average, very. All in all, though she wasn't of L's caliber, she was a quite _worthy_ adversary. Yes… she'd be a bit fun to mess around with. After all, when you order a Happy Meal, no one gives back the toy. Though L was his main target, he'd play around with _Misora_ for a while too.

It just might make the game all the more… interesting.

Fingers found their way to his mouth, coated slickly in raspberry jam. He sucked idly, vaguely aware of the sweet sugar rush going to his head, but his mind was far, far away, planning his next step.

"Mm. What should I do…?"

Watching the police cruiser pull away from the scene of his… fifth? latest crime- shit would hit the fan when they found out that they were five cases behind- he contemplated. He didn't want to just sit in the _sidelines_ when it came down to the Grand Finale. He wanted someone to share it with… he wanted someone to see him beat his nemesis.

He wanted L to know that even though that he'd died, he'd live on. His legacy.

Beyond wanted into the investigation.

He'd been the towel boy for too long.

He stretched, looking taller by a good foot for a few seconds, before sinking back into his ever-familiar crouch. Scaling a few branches higher up his tree, he peered down at the grounds below, watching a rabbit emerge from its hole in the ground. He was quite tempted to kill it and drag it home with him to dissect, but he decided against it. For one, climbing down required too much effort. So he watched as it scampered off, nose a-twitching.

His mind had already formulated the next stages.

All he needed now was a fail safe.

Thumb stuck in his mouth, for the first time, he regretted his actions. Yes, his plans had changed since back then, but that girl he had left behind… Leah. She was _perfect_. His reincarnate… almost. He wished that he hadn't left her for dead. The chances of her still being alive, yet alone in the same place he had left her were very slim. None, in fact.

Those who showed such raw promise was incredibly hard to come by.

He still had work to do.

Shimmying down from his tree, Beyond came down to the ground once he made sure that prying eyes were nowhere within a good few miles.

There was still much to be done, many pipelines to be laid, but one thing was for sure.

Before the end, he'd search for her. He'd find his successor. He'd make sure that L lives the rest of his cushy life in worry. His battle with L would never, ever end. Not even after he died. Leah would make sure of that, he was certain.

Grinning manically to himself, he rubbed his hands together in glee.

Shuffling off, he made his way towards the lights of the city.

What a kick it would give Detective Misora if he gave them another body in a kilometer radius- let them know that while they were there, _he was watching_. He'd be long gone by the time they revisited anyway- no chance of him getting himself caught.

Fingering the blade in his pocket, he watched numbers and letters flash by in red.

Soon.

He'd find the right one soon.

* * *

 _Heeeeey._

 _Many apologies for the late installment. So, so, sorry for keeping you all waiting. And yes, THE STORY SHALL GO ONNNNNN!_

 _I was sick and I got pissed off when Word decided to take yet another chapter to the abyss, never to be found again. Took me a while to get over it and start. AGAIN._

 _Buuut, I'm back. Hasta la vista, baby._

 _-Ren._


	9. CH2: (Part Eight)- Battle Scars

**Chapter 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.7: Battle Scars.**

Hissing in pain, Leah gritted her teeth as she gingerly lowered herself down the manhole. Her entire body felt broken beyond repair, and though the human body worked miracles, she knew she'd bare horrific scars from the inflicted wounds. But she didn't worry entirely too much about those- there'd be plenty more where they came from, she felt.

Limping heavily, she made her way over to the water's edge where the dim light from the streets above trickled down. She could vaguely make out a reflection of presumably herself- only it looked nothing like her. Swollen cheeks, a black eye and a horrific cut from chin to earlobe. The only thing that was the same as yesterday was her rat's nest hair. But she swore even a chunk of _that_ was missing.

As gently as she could, she plonked herself on the ground, trying not to make a sound as her bruised hipbone hit the cold cement. Lowering her hands into the canal water, she scooped out a frigid handful and didn't even blink or think twice as she put the sewer water on her face to clean up the bloody mess that caked her eyes and nose and… well… face.

The wounds stung as open sores met cold, filthy water. Any normal person would have contracted- at best- cholera, but years of living in the shadows of civilization had made her immune. Not just disease, but other aspects of life as well. Feelings for one. She didn't give a stitch about anything anymore. No longer felt pain- emotional pain. Happiness. Sadness. Envy. Despair. Nothing.

But there was one thread anchoring her to the realm of humanity.

Elaine.

Her… friend. She was the one, since Wendy all those years ago, who brought an upward twitch of Leah's lips that passed nowadays as a smile. Gave her… dare she say it… hope. Hope of making it out of this hellhole. Finding a better life for herself, away from the people hunting her… hunting _them_.

The sole reason she was washing off the blood was for Elaine. She didn't want to scare her, or make her worry. Else, she'd walk around looking like an extra from a horror movie, no problem. Elaine was the only reason there was still a flicker of light in her dark, endlessly deep eyes.

It was in the hope of a better life for the two of them that she had done this. To leave, they needed money. Elaine- it turned out had a bit saved up. Though it had no value in this necropolis, where who got what was determined by who had the biggest gun and fear factor, it would be invaluable in the outside world.

They didn't yet have enough. Which was why Leah signed up for a fight club.

Run by a shady drug cartel that operated within the city, they gathered together women and pitted them against each other for cash. And the bosses enjoyed both the view of two females grappling each other, and the thrill of them battling it out for a little petty cash that they tossed into the ring. Less than a penny's worth to them, but life changing to the fighters. The power they had over the women intoxicated them. That was the biggest turn on.

She wasn't one of the current favorites. Being scrawny and worse-for-wear, she was a write-off. They just enjoyed the spectacle of her getting pummeled into the ground for no reward. Sometimes, she won. But today, being paired with a woman almost twice her height and weight, she had stood no chance. In an enclosed ring the size of a chicken's coop, there wasn't much room for maneuvering and evasion tactics.

A bloody face and no reward. The injustice made her spit a wad of blood in what vaguely resembled anger.

But she _had_ won a few and racked up forty dollars worth. At ten a fight, it was a struggle to get to her target of six hundred. Struggle was nothing new. But, even harder was keeping it a secret from mothering Elaine. She'd flip shit of Biblical proportions.

She'd sooner become a prostitute than let Leah get clobbered half to death every two days.

Leah wouldn't let Elaine do that. It was worse than selling her soul. The scars from her past- Wendy and how and _why_ she died- determined that prostitution was more than selling your body- it was selling your soul.

She could get the money they need. Tonight was just not her lucky night. She'd just have to suck it up. Fight harder.

Seeing her reflection show a more human face, Leah slowly stood up, shifting her weight to the leg that hurt the least. Covering her face with the slightly bloodstained hoodie, she tried to walk as normally as possible towards their new hidden home in the sewers. It wasn't prime real estate- hell the smell sometimes she swore could kill.

But amongst the myriad of things that could kill her on the surface, she'd take the sewer pits- it was safer by leaps and bounds.

After all, they needed to live- to _survive_. That was all.

* * *

Crouching in the shadows, hands painted in strawberry jam of a particularly ghastly shade of red, B stared owlishly at nothing, deep in thought.

The only sound in the warehouse in which he currently resided in was the soft plink of blood dripping onto the linoleum, off the wrist of his newest victim. This one barely interested him. She had screamed, begged for her life, sworn not to tell the cops- the whole nine. He'd been through too many of those.

Of course, he'd killed her anyway- seeing the light leave their eyes was always a great, mesmerizing experience. A life… vanishing. Traceless. It was almost mystic.

But the excitement was short lived. Currently, twenty minutes later, the adrenaline had worn off and he was left, wanting and _craving_ more. _More_. He needed more. He needed intrigue- someone who didn't die so predictably and wastefully. Someone who challenged him. But boy were those ones rare. If not rare, non-existent.

B shifted in his crouch and half crawled onto a crate. Brow furrowed, he thought.

The only human who had remotely interested him was that girl from all those years ago. The promise in her eyes- he'd never forget. Leah. He wouldn't kill her- of course he wouldn't. She was far too valuable. Potentially one of a kind. But he still needed her- he needed her to follow in his footsteps and succeed him.

Again, for the umpteenth time, he wished he didn't leave her to an almost certain death. Although something in him told him that she was alive- she was a survivor.

He licked his palms and muttered gutturally in frustration.

It was all so _boring_. So very boring.

He'd kept tabs on Misora. She wasn't any closer to solving the 'impossible case.' Which means neither was _him_. _L_. And that meant he was winning. B was one up over L.

But the victory wasn't yet complete. And he wouldn't get to see the crowning moment himself. Which is why he needed another him. A successor, who could carry on his legacy. Watch L as he crumbled and broke with the first case he could not solve. Laugh for him when he could not as L did.

She maybe dead. Leah maybe dead. But if she wasn't?

It was a chance he decided to take.

If she was still alive, she truly was worthy to be his next-in-line.

The next Beyond Birthday.

* * *

Lit cigarettes winked in the dim light and smoke clouded up the already stuffy, stale room.

'So. Who's on the cards for tonight?'

A faceless, nondescript burly man in a suit bearing far too many rings on his fingers spoke. Lacing his fingers together, he rested his chin upon the back of his hands and waited expectantly for his question to be answered.

A ruffling of a few papers was heard and a voice from a shadow emanated.

'Current favorites are Sunkirst and Rhea-Donna. Bets on them are six hundred thousand.'

Grunts echoed around the table. Each and every one of them had stakes on either of the women. Weighing in at over 190 pounds, they were almost impossible to knock down. For them, betting on the two women was easy money and seemed to have no plausible disadvantage. In fact, by their cartel making such sure fire bets, it was a pretty good way of punching some holes in the finances of the cartel running the fight club.

They just needed to make absolutely sure that they win.

'Alright. Giuseppe, pair Rhea-Donna with Amhurst and Sunkirst with Madeleine. That should do it.'

A small man in the far left corner nodded silently. One curt bounce of the head. He was the inside man- it had taken years for them to weasel him into the inner ranks of the fight club, but now he was their mole. He fixed the matches.

Not all of them- just the ones that had the biggest stakes for them. Their cartel had about six hundred thousand dollars on the two burly women. He couldn't afford to mess up.

Although he saw no chance really. Their opponents were puny in comparison. One was a bit of a wimp and the other, though tougher, was quite limited in fighting technique.

Neither of them stood a chance.

At least he sure hoped so.

Because with every bet, his life was on the line too.


	10. CH2: Part Nine: Last Straw

**Chapter 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **Part 2.8: The Last Straw.**

The man licked his lips.

By the standard of the chicks in this place, she was hot. _HOT_. He didn't see the grime that covered her. Didn't seem to notice the bagginess of her clothes and the general unkemptness. Didn't notice her hostile attitude and her deeply dark glower. Any man in a sane frame of mind would have steered clear away from the girl, and most men in the Detroit did. Just not him.

Drunk out of his mind, shafted by every girl he seemed to try and hook up with, single women, married women and prostitutes alike, he was pissed off and frustrated. _That_ kind of frustrated.

He grinned to himself.

He'd try one last hookup for the night. Regardless, when the night ended, he would have gotten what he had wanted.

* * *

Leah walked down the road towards the manhole she normally entered the sewers in, deep in thought. Tomorrow's match had been fixed. What ever broad bitch she had to fight against, she'd have to lose. The whole situation was entirely shit; she didn't like to lose. Ever. But, she seemed to have no choice. If she didn't have Elaine to think about, she'd have no problem knocking out whatever ogre she'd have to fight, but because they were planning a life away from this damned place, they needed the money.

They were so, so close, and the chance couldn't come soon enough; they'd been in the shit long enough.

"Heeeeey, little lady."

She ignored the catcall and kept walking. Some drunk lecher.

"Come on babe. Let's have some fun eh?"

Lost in her thoughts, continued on her way. It was what she usually did with the drunk bastards; they were often too drunk to piss in a straight line.

She didn't notice that though she walked away further, the voice never got any less loud. The man was following her and she didn't realize. She didn't realize that the tone of voice was getting angrier and more vicious every second. She should have noticed… she was the one who noticed everything. Leah was never complacent, but she became so now… they were just so close to _leaving_.

Leah didn't notice the man until he was right in front of her. A hair's breadth away. She could smell the putrid alcohol on his breath. Despite her shock and her rising level of concern… and perhaps even fear, she didn't stumble back, but eyed him coldly.

"Fuck off asshole."

The man was at his boiling point. Leering, he reached out and roughly pulled the hood of her sweater down and cupped the side of her head, squeezing the side of her face so hard that it became numb.

"Ah baby, don't talk like that. Pretty girl like you."

He leaned down and licked her neck and Leah reflexively twisted around and tried to topple him in a chokehold and aim a kick in the nuts, but he was too heavy and he was gripping her head and neck so tightly that she could barely breath. She heard a metallic click that she was quite familiar with… not a gun, but something that in this situation seemed far worse; the sound of a switchblade being flicked open.

"Okay darrrlin' you like it like that huh? Well, I'll play too!"

For the first time in a very long time, Leah felt fear.

Images of Wendy's dying… raped… body came to mind. Wendy had saved her from that fate, only for it to come to this. Leah wanted to kick, scream, bite and do everything in her power to escape; her mind screamed at her fear-petrified legs and arms to move and do _something_. She had gone through worse shit and come back alive… why was this so terrifying?

Every time she made to move, the image of Wendy's body came to mind. The fear she felt as a child so small came back to haunt her… it was the last bodily memory of true fear she had and it was crippling. It had been the last time she had felt… fear.

She weakly struggled as she was dragged back into a filthy alleyway. Tried to scream as he slowly, with drunk, shaking hands, cut up her trousers and ripped open her sweater and shirt. Punch his eyes out as he leered and cut her bra in the middle to expose her untouched breasts. But none of it worked; her body refused to move and lay there, a piece of meat for the man to stare at hungrily.

The only thing she could do was shut her eyes and wait till it was all over.

She threw up with pain, fear and nausea as she felt a stranger enter her body, but it did nothing to disgust the man. Instead, he laughed and only grunted and thrust harder. Leah wanted to cry… but didn't remember how to. It was all too much. The world faded around her, the grunting of a drunk man violating her echoing inside her skull, until that too, faded away and everything became black.

* * *

She woke up.

Light streamed down from gaps in the rooftops shading the alleyway directly into her eyes. She winced slightly and squinted. It was daytime. Memory of what had happened the previous night came to mind. It had caused her revulsion, pain, and emotions from the past to flood her mind and overwhelm her then, but now… it was no more than a memory.

She just wondered why on earth she had become so weak. She had felt last night like the little child at the circus; she had, for a moment, _become_ that Leah. Pitiful.

Matter-of-factly, she gave her body a once-over.

There were bruises all over, bite marks indented into her skin. Dried blood caked her bare arms from being scraped against the tarmac. Elaine wouldn't notice if she wore what she usually did. She'd come home before looking worse in all honesty.

Leah staggered to her feet, ignoring the pain of her sore limbs. She felt a wetness run down her legs.

A pile of her clothes were near a dumpster. Her trousers were ripped right through, as was her sweater. The pants were unsalvageable, but if she hugged the sweater close to her body as if she was clutching an unzipped coat around her, she could probably make it home without exposing anything. She just hoped Elaine wouldn't be home. Even she couldn't find a reasonable excuse this time for her looking the way she did.

So she set off back towards the hole in the ground that was her home, memories of the previous night put in the very back of her brain, along with Wendy and all the rest. Never to be opened again.

Leah dodged and weaved.

The crowd made a miscellaneous sound; a constant buzzing of a mixture of booing and cheering. Bets were called and she heard constant screaming. Tickets seemed to fly through the air and the people were pumping their fists in the air.

The woman in front of her was one ugly, huge broad. Despite easily outweighing her by at least twice, Leah could have taken her down with one swift kick to the jugular. From how the woman was moving and sneering, she was as slow as anything and seemed to have the intelligence of a feeding pig. It would be so easy. So, very, _easy_.

Leah got a sharp hit to the side of her head that she saw coming, and could have easily avoided. It hit her like a ton of bricks and she felt her vision grey. The woman packed a punch.

There were angry yells and victorious cheers. People betting on her life. She was just a plaything… a chicken in a cockfight.

Her fists curled and anger shook her, though it didn't show through on her face. She feigned a weak, beaten up face and she struggled up shakily to continue the fight so that it didn't seem so faked. She wouldn't get paid if it was caught as utter shit, and the only reason she'd do this was Elaine. Elaine, the woman who gave a single shit to look after her.

But it was hard.

Lots of things were taken away from her last night. She had been so utterly weak and she despised weakness. She was also weak right now. Controlled by the cheers and yells. Controlled by her need for money.

She took another hit, and blood spurted from her mouth onto the floor. More cheers.

Gritting her teeth, she got up again. She slumped against the mesh keeping the arena separated from the disgusting examples of human beings out there. This was it. Maybe after this last hit, she could either pass out for real, or it might be convincing enough for her to fake it. She spat out more blood and wiped her face crudely with a dirty, bandaged hand.

She looked up, and saw her 'manager' shake his head at her, telling her not to get knocked out at the next hit. He discreetly tapped a briefcase at his feet and smiled smugly, silently warning her that she won't get her money if she did. Leah was confused for a fraction of a second, until she realized. This wasn't just about the other woman convincingly winning. It was entertainment. Her bloodshed was entertainment. It was like a gladiator shoved in an arena with hungry lions, which in this case took the form of one huge woman that looked like a bull, and had the strength of one.

Leah's blood boiled, and she stared at that half-smirk. The man looked away, shaking hands with another well-clad man, turning his attention from her.

That was it.

The bull charged, and this time, Leah straightened up. Dodging swiftly to one side, she took a fighting stance, much to the confusion of the other woman. Leah couldn't tell she was confused because she had seemed down and out before, and now was ready to fight, or if she was abandoning a protocol. Either way, she wasn't ducking down and following anyone's rules anymore. She was done being weak, being used, being entertainment.

Done.

Spinning around, Leah aimed a kick at the running woman and landed it right on her solar plexus. Doubling over, the woman huffed for air. The girl walked over slowly, and calmly wiping from blood trickling down her face, squatted down and choked the woman until her feeble scratching stopped. She was still breathing; Leah didn't kill her. But the battle was over and she had won.

Without looking at the manager or paying attention to any of the crowd, she left the arena.

She wasn't going to be fucked with. She wasn't a weak, useless child.

Not anymore.


	11. CH2:(Part Ten)-B

**Chapter 2: Her Nine Lives.**

 **(Part 9): B.**

Another one for the overflowing fridges.

Sighing, he pulled the sheet off. For a second, he was frozen. Then he jumped back in shock and dry heaved. He braved one more look and immediately ran to the sink. Retching and vomiting, he avoided looking at the table behind him. During his ten-year role as a forensic doctor, he had seen many things, ranging from decapitations to corpses boiled in acid.

This was just disgusting.

Gingerly, he turned around, now steeling himself and ready to face the body and its eyelidless, open, dead, glassy eyes that stared at him as if it was still alive. It was something out of a horror movie. Breathing deeply, he picked up the tools of his trade and began examining.

The man was about 35 to 40 years old. Caucasian. Quite large in stature. Blunt force trauma to the back of his head with a dense, perhaps metal, object. Not enough to perhaps cause death, but incapacitate him for sure.

His eyelids, nose and ears were missing, and the bruises and blood around the wounds indicated that it had been done perimortem. Jotting it down on his report, he took a piece of cloth and placed it over the dead man's eyes, perhaps out of respect for the dead, but more so because the eyes haunted him. The eyes… looked terrified. Shivering, he continued.

His penis and testicles were missing as well.

The doctor picked up a saw and made a Y-incision, opening the dead man up. Picking up a scalpel, he opened up the stomach and found all that was missing. Ears. Nose. Eyelids. Testicles. Penis. His stomach roiled; the fact that everything had traveled by peristalsis into the dead man's stomach… meant that he had been alive and had been forced to swallow his own… parts.

It took the doctor twenty minutes to recover from that. After a visit to the men's room, a quick chat with the mirror and a splash of water on his face to clear up more vomit, he returned very hesitantly. This wasn't a mob killing. This was… inhuman.

He turned the body over and as he moved down, he discovered one last present.

A switchblade embedded up the rectum.

Shakily finishing the exam, he hastily covered the body again with the white clothes and wheeled it over to the already-full freezer and locked it in. No one would come for him… no one around these parts rarely came to collect the dead.

The image of the corpse ingrained in his head, the doctor ripped off his coat and tossed down his tools. He was done for the day though the shift wasn't over. He needed to get the picture of those eyes out of his head. He was going one place and one place only.

The bar.

* * *

His eyes widened to immeasurable proportions as he stared directly down the barrel of a .22 Smith & Wesson. _His_.22 to be exact. It was all a blur- in fact he still couldn't fathom as to how the prey became predator and vice versa.

The girl he had been sent to kill stared at him. He couldn't exactly see her eyes- a hoodie hid most of her face. But he could feel the ice and it sent shivers down his spine. Posture nonchalantly relaxed, one hand languidly stuffed in a pocket, she seemed quite calm… too calm. The pistol in her grip didn't quiver in the slightest.

This was one of the rare instances that he felt fear. Fear for his life.

"Who? Why?"

After an eternity of silence, her quiet voice spoke. Void of any emotion or tone of any shape or form, the words were uttered coolly and disinterestedly, but the very real threat was unmistakable. It roughly translated to ' _tell me, or I'll hack your balls off with a switchblade and feed it to you, then laugh as I saw off your head.'_

He shivered. He knew he was staring death in the face… but he had to… Else, it'd be his family. The boss had no mercy.

Lying was unwise… but it was his only choice at the moment. Tell her the truth and _he_ would hunt him down. He'd rather risk a bullet in all actuality.

"I didn't come here to kill you."

The girl was silent- the gun didn't flinch. She called his bullshit and he internally cringed as he saw her finger curl fractionally around the trigger. Frantically, he decided to settle for half. Hopefully it would be enough to earn himself some credit- enough to save himself maybe.

"Smith. It was Smith."

Leah, hand still firmly curled around the gun nodded. She had suspected as much. This scrawny little man, she had seen around the arenas. If she wasn't mistaken, he was the accountant and kept all the books for the Manager. She suspected the Manager had sent him on the what he probably knew, impossible mission to kill her. Knowing the little man would fail.

"Please…"

Her finger tightened a little more.

The man knew that he wouldn't make it. He had told her whom had ordered her death, but she wouldn't budge. There was no mercy for him, but the mercy of a quick death.

"Please… please… kill me."

Leah frowned, but said nothing. Waiting silently for him to explain.

"Kill me. Because there's someone far worse after you and now me. I want to save my family… kill me. Kill me, or he kills my wife and kids too."

His eyes were wide and earnest. He really was waiting for her to kill him. He was terrified. Not of her, but someone else. She frowned. He was staring death in the face, and yet, he was more scared of someone else to such an extent that he chose her hands to die in.

"Watch out. He's evil. So evil. I never wanted any part of this, and I guess neither did you. So my last warning to you. Get out. Far away. Always watch your back. Now. _Kill me please!_ "

Her frown deepened in thought, and she mindlessly pulled the trigger. Before the body could hit the ground, she had already turned around and walked away. Regardless, she _was_ leaving today; Elaine had collected all the money. Whoever wanted to kill her would have no chance. Even if he did find her, she wasn't afraid. She'd fought many men before. She'd fight this one too.

She's always won.

She _hated_ to lose.

* * *

Right now, she knew that she had lost.

She was cowering in the darkness. Weaponless. Helpless.

She had lost her dream. Her and Elaine's dream. Elaine. She had lost Elaine. The one person she gave a damn about. Her sister, her mother, her best friend. It all seemed like a surreal nightmare; pig entrails seemed to exist only in cheap horror flicks. Who knew that the cheap horror flicks that people so often laughed and scoffed at… in real life were terrifying.

Leah hyperventilated.

Anything, any feeling she had ever dammed up now burst loose, burning her brain in its intensity. She clutched her head, tears involuntarily leaking out. Whether they were out of emotional or physical pain, she hadn't the faintest.

A door creaked open.

This was it. There was no more running.

She had a wound in her side. She was losing blood and this was as far as she could come. The end of the road.

Heavy, clunking footsteps. Shadows being cast on the wall. Her heart hammered out of her ribcage when she saw the outline of a pig's head. This was really, really it. Her dreams, dead. Elaine, dead. Wendy, dead. Wherever she went, everyone died. And now? Soon? Leah, dead. She cowered into a crawlspace as tightly as she could.

He would find her. He would kill her. He could smell her. She knew it.

Shoes. She saw boots. _He was here_. He stopped. _He knew she was here_. Slowly, the figure began to kneel. Bend down.

"Hello, Poppet."

She came face to face with the face of a dead pig. She couldn't scream… it was useless. She couldn't find it in herself to formulate any sort of response. He was here. She was going to die. He killed Elaine. Now she was going to die. The smell of decaying meat permeated the stuffy air. She shut her eyes.

There was a whoosh through the air. She braced herself. When it hit her, she was dead.

A thump.

Something thudded heavily to the ground and she opened her eyes. The figure to whom the boots belonged to lay flat on the ground, not moving. Blood seeped along the floor. Another figure had joined the mix, and was crouching over the man who had killed Elaine. She heard hacking noises, and saw a spray of redness.

"Leah."

The sound of her name snapped her back to her senses. There were three people in the entire world who knew her real name. Wendy. Who was dead. Elaine. Who was now dead. And… the bastard who had landed her here without a cent to her name so that she could _leave_.

"B."

Sure enough, she saw white sneakers and blood spattered blue jeans.

He moved away, silently inviting her to come out. She hesitated slightly, quickly assessing the situation. He had left her here to die, but he had come back. If he wanted her dead, he could have left it to the psychopath and watched quietly. But he had saved her, meaning that he either had some sort of arbitrary attachment to her… doubtful, given that he doomed her to Detroit in the first place… or he needed her.

Either way, he wasn't going to kill her and that was all that mattered.

She crawled out and stood up, eyeing the man in front of her silently, and the dead man on the floor. B had… more than killed him. Flesh was torn from his back and pinned down to the ground like bizarre wings. Onto them were carved random numbers that seemed to have no meaning. Numbers, interspaced sometimes with full stops.

B carefully watched his hopefully to-be-protégée. He frowned slightly. There was a degree of revulsion and disgust in her eyes as she looked at his masterpiece. He had to snuff that last bit out of her. She was so close… so close to being perfect. She was still too… _human_.

"Why?"

She directed the question at him, her expression telling him wordlessly that she wanted the answer for all possible interpretations of "why."

"Why I left you here… Because I waaaaas bored and it seemed fun. Whyyyy I did _that_? Again, I was bored. And whyyyy I came back? Because-"

Leah interjected.

"Because you need me."

B raised an eyebrow. She was indeed clever. There could have been a multitude of reasons for his coming here, and she deduced his true intent. She just needed a little… fixing. That was all. She'd be perfect.

"Why would I need you?"

Leah eyed him, and eyed the body on the floor. He hadn't needed to do the things he had done to it. He had made it a calling card; the numbers on the body made no sense to her, and the fact that he would even mark it like that was to taunt the police. It wasn't a dramatic first killing, given that this was Detroit, and B hadn't even moved it to a public place to make sure it was seen, so he obviously didn't care. This wasn't his first killing, so he was a serial. He had swiftly managed to tackle a psychopath with a machete and a whole arsenal of other ungodly tools, so he didn't need an accomplice in murders… so…"

"You want me to carry on your work."

B grinned widely.

"Very good."

Leah was silent, her face giving absolutely nothing away.

"Why? I haven't even killed anyone. You'd be better off getting someone else to do your shit."

B stuck a finger in his mouth.

"True… you haven't killed anyone. But you'd have a talent for it. But before you decide…"

He pulled out a lollipop and gave it to her.

"We have a little stop to make."

* * *

Leah stood in a sterile, cold room. A morgue. A man in a coat, whom she assumed to be a doctor, lay dead near the entrance. B quickly stripped the man naked and tossed him unceremoniously under a large pile of dead bodies in a very full freezer. All the while, whistling as if he was taking out Sunday's trash on a trash run.

"Come on, come on!"

As much as she wanted to leave, she always had found B fascinating. His emotion just a tone of voice, he felt nothing. His judgement was never compromised. He was logical and calculating. He was never weak… he didn't have a conscience to ever be weak.

She followed.

"Well, what d'ya think?"

There was a corpse on the floor he had singled out. It took her a while to recognize the face, but she did. It was the man that had raped her… which meant, B had been watching. The injuries to the body were terrible… but…

Leah bent down, tracing the stitches that held the once opened body together.

He was dead. His skin was blue and gelatinous. She poked it. There was a dent where she had poked. He was stripped of his facial features and had no testicles or penis. B… in a strange way, had avenged her. She was… pleased? Happy? She didn't really know. All she knew was that, seeing the man dead in front of her, she really, _really_ wished that she'd done it herself.

B watched. She didn't seem vindictively pleased. She just seemed… pleased.

He smiled.

Yes, she'd be perfect.


End file.
